[CTC] TPP Supporters Gear Up Campaign Laying Groundwork for Lame Duck

[Arthur Stamoulis]

INSIDE US TRADE
TPP Supporters Gear Up Lobbying Campaign Touting Benefits, Avoid Timing
March 24, 2016

The U.S. Coalition for the Trans-Pacific Partnership has begun stepping up lobbying visits to lay the groundwork for a potential lame-duck vote by trying to shore up support among both House Democrats and Republicans, according to private-sector sources.

This push is also aimed at countering the efforts by TPP opponents, even though it is far from clear whether a vote will actually occur in the lame-duck session. The message of business representatives during these House visits focuses on the benefits of TPP, rather than on the need for a quick vote, sources said.

On the Democratic side, the lobbying will continue to focus on the 28 House members who voted for the fast-track bill last year to make sure they will back TPP, sources said. Some of them said there is a question whether all of these members will support TPP, given the position taken in the presidential primaries by both former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

Business lobbying will also focus on the 10 to 15 Democrats who voted against fast track but signaled that they had not ruled out voting in favor of TPP, sources said. This group covers roughly the 13 Democrats who voted against fast track in June 2015, but for the extension of the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program when it was linked to fast track.

Some proponents of TPP say the latter group may yield additional votes because they come from pro-trade districts and it is easier to vote for a trade agreement than for the procedural fast-track bill. This is because a trade deal has concrete benefits that supporters can point to, they argue.

But Democratic sources say that, at most, only a handful of members from that group would vote for TPP. One of them said for House Democrats, the fast-track vote was a proxy for TPP and as a result members are unlikely to change their votes.

An anti-TPP lobbyist said that whatever the reasoning of this group may have been, it has shifted in light of Clinton's criticism of TPP. He charged that only members in that group that are not up for re-election would now back TPP.

At this point, the coalition is making about six visits to Congress a week, but these meetings are yielding few concrete results, according to business sources. The general response from congressional offices is that they are keeping an open mind on TPP and are listening to each side of the debate, that they want to see the economic analysis of the International Trade Commission, and that lobbyists should revisit them once a date for the vote has been set, sources said.

Even the most pro-TPP lobbyists acknowledge that the torrent of criticism that the TPP faces in the presidential election campaign makes it harder to garner votes for it. Some business sources hold out the hope that, like 2008, the trade criticism will end after the primaries, but other sources say that is unlikely if the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination Donald Trump squares off against Clinton.

If the 28 pro-TPA House Democrats voted for TPP along with a handful of others, then House Republicans would still have to provide 185 votes for TPP, which may be a high hurdle to make, sources said.

One congressional aide said that the House Republican leadership at this point seems to think that the problem with locking in Republican votes is limited to finding fixes for the three main problems identified by industries. They are a longer period of marketing exclusivity for biologics, ensuring that financial services firms are included in a ban on local data storage requirements and addressing the tobacco carveout from investor-state dispute settlement cases.

But the problem is bigger, according to this source. That is partially because Republican members who were elected in 2010 and 2012 and backed such trade deals as the U.S.-Colombia or U.S.-Korea free trade agreements could reevaluate their pro-trade stance as a result of the successful Trump campaign for two reasons, he said.

Given how well Trump's anti-trade rhetoric is playing with voters, these Republicans may change their pro-trade votes because they realize that they are backed by the same type of voter, according to this source. In addition, Trump's attacks on President Obama may lead them to reject the TPP because it is a deal that his administration negotiated, the source said.

On the Republican side, the coalition's lobbying campaign will focus on members who were the last to come out in support of the fast-track bill, and those that voted against fast track but were from a pro-trade district, sources said. Pro-TPP lobbyists believe that Republicans have more problems with supporting the fast-track mechanism than an FTA.

The Republican leadership in Congress has made clear that there will be no vote on TPP before the election. This gives the Obama administration some time to negotiate potential fixes for the three problems with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX).

Once the administration has struck a deal with these members, it would still have to sell the other TPP signatories on those changes. The administration's effort to address these issues has taken on a new level of importance with the involvement of White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, who met with Hatch last week.

One pro-TPP lobbyist said the real question is whether McDonough is guiding the process and will remain engaged in the process with Hatch. He speculated that Hatch believes he can deal with the White House in a way that he cannot with USTR.

Business sources said they are aware of the new opening, but not of how hard and quickly the administration is trying to fix these problems. Some sources expressed worry that the fixes may not be quick enough to sufficiently prepare the ground for a lame-duck vote.

They warned that the three problems with TPP do not have the same ranking in terms of priority for the administration. Some said the highest priority item is biologics because of Hatch's demands, followed in descending order by the financial services issue and tobacco. Others say the first two issue have the same level of importance.

But two long-time lobbyists said that they do not believe the administration will necessarily try to fix all three issues. Once the biologics issue is squared away, the administration will assess whether the votes are there and then decide whether it needs to tackle other issues.

Sources on both sides of the debate said the possibility of a lame-duck vote on TPP remains hard to predict. It depends on the outcome of the election, as well as which party will controls the Senate and the House in the next Congress, one congressional source said. It is impossible to handicap these factors, he said.

The second question that cannot be answered is whether a lame-duck session is needed and what measures must be passed then. The most likely is an omnibus funding bill to keep the government going, which will be needed if the House is unable to pass a budget or individual appropriations bills, one source said. However, it cannot be ruled out that Congress would pass a short-term funding bill that may take the government to February or further into the spring, the source said.

The official House calendar circulated by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) at the beginning of the session said the lame duck would last for four weeks, but that the lame-duck schedule is subject to change.

The third issue is what needs to be done in terms of the process to getting the bill to the final vote, and how much time that will take. The amount of time available will depend on when the president meets the procedural requirements for submitting the final bill, such as submitting to Congress the final TPP text and a draft statement of administrative action no less than 30 days before formally submitting the implementing bill.

If he submitted those documents on Nov. 9, the day after the election, then he would not be able to formally submit the draft implementing bill until Dec. 9. That would make for a tight schedule, one source said.

Observers differed on whether the White House would be willing to submit the draft implementing bill before the election in order to allow for more time for congressional consideration.
 
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