Republicans Boycott US Senate FTA Review

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington

06 July 2011

The United States Senate Committee on Finance was unable to begin its review of proposed legislation to implement the three pending free trade agreements (FTAs) with South Korea, Colombia and Panama, as a scheduled committee meeting was inquorate when no Republican members attended.

The Finance Committee’s Chairman, Democrat Max Baucus, had announced he would hold a “mock” markup of the draft implementing bills for the FTAs on June 30. Committee mock markups are the standard way that Congress reviews FTAs negotiated by the government under fast-track authority, which prohibits amendments to final implementing bills.

However, Committee rules require a quorum, which must include at least one member of each party, and its Republican Ranking Member, Orrin Hatch, informed Baucus that the Republican party objected to the committee meeting, and that no Republicans would attend it.

The Republican objection was to the inclusion of an extension of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) within the proposed legislation for the FTA with South Korea. The TAA programme 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.

Since its expiry in February this year, any extension of the TAA programme has encountered opposition from Republicans as they look for additional spending cuts in order to reduce the federal government’s fiscal deficit. With the Democrat majority in the Senate Finance Committee, it was likely that the South Korea/TAA legislation would have been approved in the mock markup, but that possibility was negated by the Republican no-show.

In a subsequent letter to President Barack Obama, the Republican members of the Committee laid out their opposition. “It is imperative that Congress be closely consulted throughout the trade agreement negotiation process and during development of implementing legislation for each trade agreement,” they wrote. “We are concerned about last minute attempts to include provisions expanding TAA in the South Korea FTA implementing bill. We believe such actions... unduly infringe on the rights of members of the Senate to carefully weigh and debate the merits of TAA.”

“While we may share different views regarding our support for these agreements and on trade adjustment assistance, we are united in our opposition to inclusion of expanded TAA in this implementing bill submitted to Congress under Trade Promotion Authority. We believe each trade agreement and Trade Adjustment Assistance should be debated and considered in the Senate on its own merits.”

Hatch called the Obama Administration’s highly-partisan strategy a threat to the three pending trade agreements. “Let me be blunt,” he said. “The decision to jam TAA into the South Korea agreement and then spring a quickie markup on the Finance Committee is a process foul. Moreover, as a matter of substance, TAA is a deeply controversial spending programme.”

The unfortunate timing of the disagreement in the Senate has been noted in many quarters. South Korea’s FTA with the European Union went into effect the following day - on July 1 – while Colombia’s agreement with Canada will be in force next month.

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