[CTC] Obama Formally Notifies Congress Of Intent To Sign TPP Agreement

[Arthur Stamoulis]

INSIDE US TRADE

Thursday, November 05, 2015

Daily News

Obama Formally Notifies Congress Of Intent To Sign TPP Agreement

Posted: November 05, 2015

President Obama on Thursday afternoon (Nov. 5) formally notified Congress <http://insidetrade.com/node/150913> of his intent to sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, the same day TPP countries released the nearly final text.

“Consistent with the Trade Priorities Act, I am sending this notification at least 90 days in advance of signing the TPP Agreement,” Obama said in the letter. “My Administration looks forward to working with the Congress in developing appropriate legislation to approve and implement this TPP Agreement.”

This step will trigger a 90-day layover period for Congress to review the measure before it is signed, which is a requirement of the fast-track law Congress passed earlier this year. This means the earliest date the President can sign the deal is Feb. 3, 2016.

The quick notification formally meets the demand of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) that the administration not notify its intention to sign TPP before it has released the text to Congress.

The notification will also trigger a 30-day period in which the cleared advisers have to prepare their assessment of the TPP deal. Those reports will be sent to Congress with the implementing bill.

Under the fast-track law, the president is only obligated to make the text available to the public 30 days after the notification, or 60 days before he signs the deal. But the administration took care of this obligation by making the near final text available the same day it provided it to Congress.

Some sources have speculated that the administration is interested in an early congressional vote on TPP somewhere in the mid-May to mid-June time frame, when the key primaries in the presidential race are done but before the nominating conventions, these sources said.

That timeline would presume that the International Trade Commission has completed its analysis of TPP's impact on the U.S. economy. The fast-track law gives the ITC up to 105 days after the president signs TPP to complete its analysis.

If the ITC takes that full time, it would complete the analysis sometime in mid-May, sources said. Sources said that the ITC has already started the analysis <http://insidetrade.com/node/146067> at the request of Froman. However, the ITC has not committed to finishing its analysis in less than the 105 days, which has led to some private-sector speculation that it may well take the full allotted time.

In the Nov. 5 briefing, Earnest made clear the administration does not want to wait until next year's lame duck session for a congressional vote on TPP, as some members of Congress have suggested. “We have made it clear that it is not necessary to wait that long,” Earnest said. “We do not believe that Congress should wait a year before acting [on TPP],” he said.

At the same time, Earnest said that the administration is “respectful” of the fact that there is a process that needs to play out. He said this is evident in the administration's efforts to have the TPP text released quickly so that the American public has ample time to review the deal before the president signs it and Congress begins its process of considering it.

For the consideration of the TPP, he said, the administration will engage in an effort to rebuild the coalition in Congress that helped it approve the fast-track law earlier this year. Sources have said that since the fast-track vote, the administration has continuously courted the 28 House Democrats who voted in favor of fast-track, as well as the 13 Senate Democrats who voted for cloture to let the fast-track bill go forward.

He said Obama has demonstrated his personal involvement in the fast-track debate and that is indicative of his willingness to lobby members of Congress for the TPP.
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