Friday, June 12, 2015

US House Passes TPA,


But Bill Is Blocked Til House Passes TAA

By John Shaw Friday, June 12, 2015 - 14:33


House Confuses World and Itself With Baffling Trade Votes
House Passes TPA, But Bill Can't Advance Till TAA Passes

WASHINGTON (MNI) - In a series of votes Friday, the House managed to confuse itself and the world and throw the nation's trade agenda into a state of near chaos.

The House voted narrowly, 219 to 211, to approve legislation renewing Trade Promotion Authority.

However before that vote, the House also voted to reject, on a 126-to-302 vote, a separate bill to renew the Trade Adjustment Assistance program.

Under the terms of the package of rules approved Thursday evening, the House needed to pass both of those bills for the entire package to advance.

Dozens of House Democrats who usually support TAA voted against it Friday as a tactical move to skuttle TPA.

After the two votes, House Speaker John Boehner offered a motion for the House to vote again next week on the TAA bill.

A House GOP staffer told MNI that he expects that House vote to occur Tuesday.

President Barack Obama has been a vocal supporter of TPA and TAA and lobbied Democrats aggressively on trade. He even met with all House Democrats in the Capitol several hours before the votes.

Obama has said TPA is needed in order for the administration to complete several key free trade agreements currently in the final stages of negotiation including the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

After the House votes, White House press spokesman Josh Earnest urged Democrats to support the TAA bill when it comes up again in the House.

--MNI Washington Bureau; tel: +1 202-371-2121; email: jshaw@mni-news.com


Comments

TPA, Trade Promotion Authority is Fast Track. It puts Obama in charge to give away the USA. It’s time to really raise hell to ensure that the TAA vote next week fails again.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is from another article. This will only get worse before it is eventually passed. We're being played.


After Pelosi delivered the final blow to the legislation, she sent a letter to all Democrats saying that stopping the fast-track bill was their way to leverage support for a massive infrastructure bill.

However, in a sign of their disjointed posture, other Democrats had other ideas about what they were trying to get by stopping the trade package. “The real issue here is TPP, and this is an effort to get TPP on the right track,” said Rep. Sander M. Levin (Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee.

Levin said “the focus of these next days” would be to force the Obama administration to reopen portions of the negotiations with Pacific Rim nations on worker organizing rights and currency ma­nipu­la­tion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/president-obama-is-all-in-on-trade-sees-it-as-a-cornerstone-of-his-legacy/2015/06/12/32b6dce8-1073-11e5-a0dc-2b6f404ff5cf_story.html