[CTC] Hoyer Sees House Fast Track No Earlier Than Friday; Republicans May Decide Tomorrow

Tue Jun 9 13:30:02 PDT 2015

INSIDE US TRADE Tuesday, June 09, 2015
Daily News
Hoyer Sees House TPA No Earlier Than Friday; Republicans May Decide Tomorrow
Posted: June 09, 2015

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) on Tuesday (June 9) indicated that the earliest the House will vote on a bill to renew Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) is Friday (June 12), and said Democrats have had "some success" in discussions with Republicans on changing a controversial budget offset for the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program that has become an obstacle to TPA passage.

In a press briefing, Hoyer said the House on Friday will likely consider either the TPA bill or legislation to reauthorize U.S. intelligence programs for fiscal year 2016, adding that whichever bill is not taken up could be considered the following week.

"If we do trade on Friday, then intel will be in next week,” he said. “If not, apparently the opposite is true, although I don't think [it's] definite.”

But Hoyer also held open the possibility that neither bill would come up on Friday if the House needs more time to complete consideration of an appropriations bill for the Department of Defense.

`The House Republican leadership is likely to decide on scheduling the vote after a closed-door conference on June 10, sources said. One informed source said that if a formal Republican whip count comes back on Wednesday (June 10) as showing supporters are within a six vote margin of victory, the leadership is likely to schedule the vote for Friday.

The House Republican leadership has made clear that it wants to bring up the TPA bill, also known as fast track, as soon as there are enough votes for passage.

An updated floor schedule circulated by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to House GOP offices late Tuesday morning still lists a possible vote on trade legislation between Wednesday and the end of the week. Votes on Friday will take place no later than 3 p.m., according to the floor schedule circulated by McCarthy.

Fast-track supporters and opponents are providing differing assessments of how far away TPA proponents are from achieving that goal.

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) said Tuesday that his whip list shows TPA proponents are still 14-17 votes short of the 217 they need, which they hope to get from House Democrats. He acknowledged that some of these members may be “good liars” about their votes on fast track, implying they may be telling him they are opposed or leaning no while planning to vote for the bill.

He said every day the Republican leadership does not schedule the vote is an acknowledgment that the votes are not there to pass the bill. According to Pascrell, if the leadership had the votes, the House would be voting on the fast-track bill right now.

Separately, a pro-TPA lobbyist said as many as 24 House Democrats have committed to vote “yes” -- higher than the number who have come out publicly -- and that the count on the Republican side is likely close to 200. Still, this source said he expected the TPA vote to be delayed until next week.

Pascrell spoke in a press conference organized by fast-track opponents to express opposition to having China join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and to debunk claims that the TPP is part of an effective geopolitical strategy by the U.S. to counteract China in the Asia-Pacific. Also participating in the press conference were Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Brad Sherman (D-CA) as well as AFL-CIO Policy Director Damon Silvers and Clyde Prestowitz of the Economic Policy Institute.

Sherman said if TPA opponents can hold off the vote until the end of June so members can experience the TPP opposition in their districts during the July 4 recess, opponents would have a chance to defeat the fast-track bill. He did not directly address a question of whether failure to hold off the vote until then would mean the fast-track legislation would pass the House.

In addition to the vote count, the fight over the TAA offset has become a key obstacle to TPA passage, according to lobbyists on both sides of the debate. The offset would fund the TAA program in part by cutting $700 million in Medicare payments to health providers in 2024.

At his press conference, Hoyer said there had been progress in the talks between House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on the TAA offset, but he did not provide specifics and said he had not been updated on developments in the last 24 hours.

Hoyer said Boehner has demanded that any change to the offset be made in separate legislation, not the Senate-passed TPA-TAA bill on which Republicans are seeking to avoid a conference. House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) has signaled the change could be made through a separate customs and enforcement bill the House is slated to consider alongside TPA.

Hoyer signaled that the Democratic leadership had not yet made a decision about whether to push for the offset change in the TPA bill, the customs legislation or a separate bill.

“We need to figure out: Is it the customs bill or some other bill? Or, should we insist that it be in TAA? The leader is working on that," Hoyer said.

One congressional source said Pelosi seems to favor including the change to the TAA offset in a vehicle other than the customs bill or the Senate-passed TPA-TAA bill. This source said Pelosi appears reluctant to push for changes to the TPA-TAA bill itself because she does not want to derail the Obama administration's trade agenda.

Hoyer said that, whatever the vehicle, Pelosi is pushing for assurances from House and Senate leaders that any agreed change to the TAA offset would be approved in both chambers.
Regarding his own vote on TPA, Hoyer said he has not yet made a decision, but mentioned what he described as a "complicated" linkage between TPA and TPP.

On TPP, Hoyer said he was worried about food safety, Vietnam's role in the agreement, transparency, and labor issues. He also said that he will make his decision based on the substance of the bill, and not because of how his vote might affect a bid to become the Democratic leader if Pelosi decides to step down from her post.

The schedule Hoyer outlined to reporters does not provide any room for TPA consideration until Friday. He said the House will vote on Tuesday on a Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. On Wednesday (June 10), it will vote on a bill to repeal country-of-origin labeling requirements for meat and would begin consideration of the defense appropriations bill on that same day with a vote on final passage possible late on Thursday evening.

 The House Rules Committee has already scheduled meetings to draft rules for the consideration of the defense and COOL bills on Tuesday, and the intelligence bill on Wednesday. But the committee has not yet announced a meeting to craft a rule for any trade legislation.

Meetings of the Rules Committee must be notified 72 hours in advance, but the chairman can waive that notification requirement for “emergency meetings,” according to a committee spokeswoman. She said there is no requirement for how far in advance Rules must meet before a bill goes to the floor, though it is often the day before floor action.

But a House rules expert said that once the Rules Committee approves a rule for considering a particular bill, it must lay overnight before the rule and the bill itself can come to the floor. However, that requirement can be waived if two-thirds of House members agree to do so, although that waiver usually comes in the form of a separate rule passed by the committee, this source said.

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