[CTC] The Hill - Boehner 'rolling the dice' on FT vote

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Votes today on preferences and rules; tomorrow on TAA, Fast Track and Customs.  

Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826



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House GOP lays out trade bill's complicated path to final vote
By Scott Wong <http://thehill.com/author/scott-wong> - 06/11/15 09:06 AM EDT
The House will begin voting on trade legislation on Thursday, setting up a high-stakes vote Friday on a critical bill to give President Obama fast-track powers.

The complicated new process, laid out by GOP leadership late Wednesday night, is designed to address objections from Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) about how the trade package would be structured on the floor.
On Thursday, the House will first take up a trade preferences bill that includes new offsets to pay for Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), a related bill that provides aid to workers displaced by trade deals. Those new pay-fors, negotiated by Pelosi and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), would come from increased tax enforcement rather than through cuts to Medicare, which were part of the Senate-passed TAA bill.

Democrats and some Republicans, including the Doctor’s Caucus, had wanted to replace the Medicare cuts.

“This change should alleviate any remaining substantive or procedural concerns from all parties” on the Medicare issue, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) wrote in a memo outlining the process.

By moving the trade preferences bill first, he said, the House will vote to scrap the Medicare provision before moving to other trade bills. The preferences bill will then head to the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has vowed to quickly pass it.

The House then will vote on a rule to bring up TAA, as well as the fast-track bill known as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) and a customs trade bill.

During Friday votes, there are at least two possible scenarios.

A failed TAA vote would blow up the fast-track bill, since pro-trade Democrats say they won’t support TPA without the workers aid.

If the TAA vote passes, the House will vote on TPA, which Obama says he needs to complete a massive trade deal between the U.S. and 11 other Pacific Rim nations.

Finally, the House will vote to convene a House-Senate conference committee to work out differences on the customs bill.

The GOP leadership’s decision to press forward on trade this week follows a flurry of last-minute discussions between Boehner and Pelosi. Democrats told Pelosi on Wednesday they were worried about casting a trade vote that included Medicare cuts, even if those cuts would be nullified by another vote.

Pelosi walked away Wednesday night without a deal to change the process. Boehner’s now rolling the dice with his new plan, gambling that 218 Republican and Democratic votes will be there when the big trade bills hit the floor Friday.

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POLITICO
Democrats threaten to sink Obama trade agenda

By Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan and Lauren French 

6/11/15 10:06 AM EDT
President Barack Obama’s trade agenda is running into potentially fatal opposition within his own party on the eve of a critical vote, and there might be only one person who can save it: Obama himself.

Speaker John Boehner’s plan to bring a package of trade bills to the House floor Friday is proving to be a big gamble, as both senior Republicans and Democrats are privately wondering whether they have the votes to pass several key portions.

The most pressing concern is over Trade Adjustment Assistance, a program to retrain workers who lose their jobs to free trade. The initiative is not very popular with Republicans, and aides in both parties estimate that only 50 to 100 GOP lawmakers will vote for it. And with unions actively lobbying against the bill, a senior House Democratic aide said it will be “a major problem” to wrangle “significant House Democratic support” for the measure.

That jobs assistance bill needs 218 votes to pass. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), a close ally of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, has been vocal against TAA, and raising other objections about the package.

This is a serious problem for Obama. If TAA fails, the House will not take up Trade Promotion Authority, the key legislation that would give Obama fast-track authority to negotiate the sweeping Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. Under that scenario both sides would have to regroup and figure out a way forward — or else the 12-nation trade deal could fall apart.

House Democrats will meet at noon in the Capitol, and Labor Secretary Tom Perez is expected to attend to try to save the package.

Opposition to TAA — and how it is funded — has only surfaced in the last few weeks. An identical package passed the Senate last month.

Boehner (R-Ohio) and Pelosi have negotiated to replace the Medicare cuts that originally funded the jobs bill with another budget offset — more stringent enforcement of tax laws. Pelosi then objected to how Boehner was planning to advance the legislation.

Late Wednesday night, Boehner agreed to a complicated procedure pitched by Pelosi to advance the package. It would ensure that the Medicare cuts that originally paid for the TAA bill are nullified by another piece of preceding legislation. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell issued a public statement Wednesday, ensuring he would give swift consideration to the bill that replaces the Medicare reductions.

Boehner began the process of bringing the bills to the floor by securing a unanimous consent agreement for one of the four bills that need a vote. Pelosi, who says she is neutral on giving Obama fast-track authority, says she also has concerns about public-employee language in the agreement, and is saying that she would also like policy changes alongside the process she pitched to Boehner.

The GOP leadership believes Obama needs to step in.

“Republicans are going to do our part, but the president will have to deliver on TAA to get this done,” said Kevin Smith, Boehner’s communications
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