TPA Can Still Be Stopped!

After Friday's votes in the House, you're probably confused about the status of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). The confusion arises from the fact that a TPA bill was passed by the House on Friday by 219-211. Since the Senate had passed TPA on May 22, this would ordinarily mean that the next stop for TPA would be President Obama's desk where he would sign it into law.

However, when the Senate passed TPA on May 22, it was part of a package that included Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) legislation. TAA provides job-training assistance to workers who have lost their jobs due to trade agreements. House leadership decided to separate the TPA and TAA portions of the Senate trade package and have standalone votes on them last Friday. Since the Senate had passed both TPA and TAA as a package, the House would have to pass both TPA and TAA to avoid having to open negotiations with the Senate, coming up with compromise legislation and then voting again in both House and Senate on TPA and TAA legislation.

Before the House voted on TAA last Friday, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi gave a speech on the House floor in which she asked her fellow Democrats to vote NO on TAA in order "to slow down" the "fast track" TPA legislation and give Democrats the opportunity to amend it. When it came time for the TAA vote, 143 Democrats joined her to defeat the bill overwhelmingly, 126-302. This meant that TPA would be temporarily derailed.  Click here to see the details of that vote.

How confusing! However, one thing is clear. The House is expected to hold another vote on TAA on Tuesday, June 16, or if not on that day certainly sometime soon. If the House passes TAA, then they will have matched the Senate in passing a TPA/TAA package and that would mean the next stop would be President Obama's desk where he would readily sign the TPA and TAA legislation into law.

Our job is to convince enough of our representatives in the House to vote against TAA this coming week to derail the TPA/TAA package temporarily. If we succeed, then we'll have some additional time to convince a sufficient number of our fellow Americans to pressure Congress to stop TPA permanently.

Due to last Friday's vote on TPA in the House where it passed by 219-211, you can click here to see where your representative stood on TPA as of that vote. If you click to see the details of the vote, don't be confused by the description of it. This was the TPA vote on Friday. This information will help you to understand how your representative might vote on TAA this coming week, knowing that a vote for TAA will be a vote for the TPA/TAA package.

Please phone your representative's Washington, D.C., office and local office on Monday, June 15, and tell them to stop the TPA bill by voting NO on the TAA bill.

I agree with Senator Jeff Sessions that the TPA bill must be defeated to prevent our nation from being merged into an EU-style Pacific Union by the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Please email your representative now with the same message.

Next, spread the message of this alert to as many others as possible by either posting a link to "Act Now: TPA Can Still Be Stopped!" on social media or by forwarding this email to others.

Source: The John Birch Society