Hatch Calls For US Congress Action On South Korean FTA

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington

15 July 2011

Orrin Hatch, the Republican Ranking Member of the United States Senate Finance Committee, has urged the leaders of the House of Representatives and Senate to resolve the differences between the two versions of the implementing legislation that now exist for the free trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea.

Draft implementing legislation for the South Korean FTA has passed through the Senate Finance Committee and the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, but the Senate version includes an added extension to the disputed Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program.

The TAA program is designed to provide a variety of re-employment services and benefits to workers who have lost their jobs or suffered a reduction of hours and wages as a result of increased imports or shifts in production outside the US. However, a TAA extension has encountered opposition from Republicans, as they look for additional spending cuts in order to reduce the federal government’s fiscal deficit, while President Obama has said that he will not sign the FTA without its extension being attached.

Indeed, Hatch himself has argued that “the inclusion of an unrelated spending measure that the White House included in the Senate version breaks long-standing trade rules.”

In a letter to both Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, as well as Republicans, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Hatch noted that it was the “exclusive prerogative of Congress” to reconcile the different versions of the two FTA bills.

Therefore, he added, “it is my expectation that a ‘mock conference’ will be scheduled shortly, thereby providing Congress with the opportunity to present to the President a template for drafting a final implementing bill which has the support of both Houses.” He requests that such a conference be scheduled in the near future.

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