[CTC] Fast Track Held Up By Fight Over TAA Funding, As Two Trade Packages Emerge

[Arthur Stamoulis]

INSIDE US TRADE   Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Daily News
TPA Held Up By Fight Over TAA Funding, As Two Trade Packages Emerge

The scope and funding level for the reauthorization of the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program remain key sticking points in the effort to introduce a bill renewing Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), even though a rough plan for how to advance that bill and other trade legislation is beginning to emerge.
 
As part of this plan, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-OR) and House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) will likely move TAA in a bill separate from TPA, sources familiar with the congressional discussions said.
 
TPA would be paired with the renewal of the Generalized System of Preferences, African Growth and Opportunity Act and the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity Partnership Encouragement Act, they said.
The second bill would include TAA renewal and customs reauthorization provisions, particularly aimed at fighting the evasion of trade remedy duties; it could also potentially include other legislation, according to these sources. Both of these bills would be considered at the same Finance committee markup, sources said.
 
This approach meets Hatch's demand that TAA not be packaged together with a TPA bill. It would also enable Hatch and other skeptical Finance Republicans to vote against the TAA package in a markup, sources said.
One labor source said Wyden appears willing to allow the TPA and TAA bills to move separately as long as he gets a commitment from Ryan that the House will pass TAA. But that type of commitment is not sufficient for the AFL-CIO labor federation, which is pushing for TAA to be in the same bill as TPA, this source said.
 
Moving TAA separately is bound to be controversial for Senate Finance Democrats, including Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who told Inside U.S. Trade on April 15 that TAA “got to be part of this” TPA bill.
“How do you pass a trade bill that will throw hundreds of thousand of workers out of work, and then go, 'Sorry, we do not have any help for you,'” Brown said.
 
The debate over TAA centers in part on the amount of funding that will be authorized for the program on an annual basis, according to informed sources. Ryan wants to limit that amount to $400 million per year, they said. That falls short of the push for $575 million a year over six years that the AFL-CIO has indicated would be the acceptable minimum.
 
The level of funding cited by the AFL-CIO is the amount of money that would be authorized under the Obama administration's 2016 budget proposal as well as a pending bill to renew TAA that is sponsored by Brown and 41 other Senate Democrats. But the administration now appears willing to accept the $400 million level in order to get the deal done, sources said.
 
Two sources said Ways & Means Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI), who has not participated the talks on the TPA bill, is involved in the efforts to find a TAA compromise and is expected to play a role in its consideration in committee.
 
According to one source, the funding level of TAA is just one of several outstanding issues with respect to the program. Two others are whether the bill will include a renewal of the Health Care Tax Credit (HCTC) and whether it will cover public sector workers, as the Brown bill does.
 
The HCTC provides a tax credit to individuals benefiting from TAA in order to defray the costs of health care, given that many workers receive health care through their employer. But some critics argue that the HCTC is no longer needed because those individuals can now get subsidized health care under the Affordable Care Act.
 
The two-bill strategy is a way for Hatch, Ryan and Wyden to manage the amendment process in committee markups, several sources said. They said the three lawmakers want to fend off amendments to the first bill that includes TPA and the three preference programs, but are willing to allow amendments to the TAA/customs bill.
 
This strategy would be aimed at trying to ensure the House and Senate TPA bills are identical and thereby avoid the need for a conference, which would further complicate an already complex process.
But another informed source said Hatch and Wyden are not committed to fighting off amendments to the bill that includes TPA, and that some amendments may actually be encouraged.
 
A key outstanding question is how these two bills will be linked together as they move through committee and on the floor of each chamber, sources said. This is important especially for some Democratic supporters of TPA, who have said their support depends on whether TAA is passed along with it.
 
Several sources speculated that lawmakers could move ahead with introduction of the bill that includes TPA even if the second bill is not ready, in light of outstanding issues related to TAA and customs reauthorization. Some sources still held open the possibility that the TPA bill could be introduced on Wednesday (April 15).
 
The customs bill would include legislation to crack down on evasion of trade remedy orders, but sources said congressional staff are still negotiating a compromise between two competing versions of the evasion bill.
They are the ENFORCE Act, which sets deadlines for Customs and Border Protection to act on circumvention complaints, and the PROTECT Act, which does not. Wyden and some Finance Republicans favor the ENFORCE Act, while Ways & Means Republicans favor PROTECT.
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