<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/business/trade-pact-senate-vote-obama.html" class="">http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/business/trade-pact-senate-vote-obama.html</a><br class=""><br class="">Trade Authority Bill Wins Final Approval in Senate<br class=""><br class="">By JONATHAN WEISMAN<br class=""><br class="">JUNE 24, 2015 WASHINGTON The Senate on Wednesday gave final<br class="">approval to legislation granting President Obama enhanced power to<br class="">negotiate major trade agreements with Asia and Europe, sending the<br class="">presidents biggest end-of-term legislative priority to the White<br class="">House for his signature.<br class=""><br class="">Senators then approved a bill that provides assistance to workers<br class="">displaced by international trade accords, attaching it to a popular<br class="">African trade measure that will go to the House for a final vote<br class="">Thursday morning. House Democrats signaled they would support the<br class="">measure, which they had voted down two weeks before.<br class=""><br class="">The burst of legislative action secured a hard-fought victory for Mr.<br class="">Obama and the Republican congressional leadership. It kept on track<br class="">an ambitious agenda to complete a broad trade agreement joining 12<br class="">countries from Canada and Chile to Australia and Japan into a web<br class="">of rules governing trans-Pacific commerce. Negotiators will also move<br class="">forward on an accord with Europe, knowing that any agreement over the<br class="">next six years will be subject to a straight up-or-down vote, but<br class="">cannot be amended or filibustered in Congress.<br class=""><br class="">The Senate cleared the so-called trade promotion bill 60 to 38, with<br class="">13 Democrats joining all but five Republicans. After the Senate voted<br class="">76 to 22 to cut off debate on the worker aid and African trade bill,<br class="">senators agreed to pass it by voice vote.<br class=""><br class="">This is a critical day for our country, said Senator Orrin G.<br class="">Hatch, Republican of Utah and chairman of the Senate Finance<br class="">Committee, who called trade promotion authority the most important<br class="">bill well do this year.<br class=""><br class="">Its taken a while to get here, longer than many of us would have<br class="">liked, he added, but anything worth doing takes effort.<br class=""><br class="">Final passage does not guarantee the presidents completion of the<br class="">more imminent Trans-Pacific Partnership, seen as a central element of<br class="">the White Houses strategic shift toward Asia. Negotiations with<br class="">Europe over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership have<br class="">further to go.<br class=""><br class="">But the Obama administration and its trading partners saw approval of<br class="">fast-track negotiating power as a vital prerequisite. Countries like<br class="">Japan and Australia refused to make the politically precarious<br class="">compromises necessary to complete the trade deals until they knew<br class="">that Congress could not amend the final agreement and ask for<br class="">additional negotiations.<br class=""><br class="">At the same time, the trade promotion bill, hashed out over months of<br class="">arduous negotiations, adds new hurdles to completion. Under the<br class="">legislation, the president may not even sign a final agreement for<br class="">two months, and Congress cannot consider the deal for two additional<br class="">months while the public gets its first complete look at the accord.<br class="">That delay will most likely push any consideration of the Pacific<br class="">accord well into the presidential election season, a difficult<br class="">political environment in which to consider the largest trade<br class="">agreement since the North American Free Trade Agreement.<br class=""><br class="">A separate bill bolstering trade enforcement rules set for final<br class="">passage in July includes measures added late in the process to win<br class="">conservative support, further complicating the presidents job. They<br class="">include a provision prohibiting any trade agreement from forcing<br class="">action by the United States on climate change and another forbidding<br class="">trade accords to include provisions easing immigration and visa<br class="">rules.<br class=""><br class="">The dislocated worker bill swings the Democrats direction. Such<br class="">trade adjustment assistance programs have existed since the Kennedy<br class="">administration, but pro-trade Democrats demanded a significant<br class="">expansion as a price for their support for fast track. The bill<br class="">extends assistance through June 2022, with an expansion of the<br class="">program through June 2021. That includes $2.7 billion in funds for<br class="">worker retraining and education, and a provision that for the first<br class="">time makes workers in service industries eligible for a program once<br class="">reserved for out-of-work manufacturing workers.<br class=""><br class="">The bill extends and expands a tax credit for the purchase of health<br class="">insurance, and it includes subsidies for the wages of workers 50 or<br class="">older who were forced to find lower-paid jobs than the ones they lost<br class="">to international competition.<br class=""><br class="">This month, House Democrats voted down that measure when it was<br class="">attached to enhanced trade negotiating powers, hoping that by<br class="">defeating that part of the bill, they could derail the entire trade<br class="">package.<br class=""><br class="">That prompted Republican leaders with the support of the White<br class="">House to break apart those two measures and approve them separately<br class="">over the last two weeks. After meeting as a caucus Wednesday morning,<br class="">House Democrats decided they could no longer oppose worker assistance<br class="">knowing that voting it down would have no impact on a trade promotion<br class="">authority bill heading to the president regardless.<br class=""><br class="">Senior Democrats said they would now focus their pressure on the<br class="">Trans-Pacific Partnership itself.<br class=""><br class="">My responsibility is to have a unified caucus and try to focus on<br class="">what we have to do next, which is to make sure T.P.P. is a great<br class="">agreement, said Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California<br class="">and the House minority leader, who formally announced her support for<br class="">the worker aid measure in a letter to the House Democratic Caucus on<br class="">Wednesday. Theres a lot of work to be done.<br class=""><br class="">Democrats remain bitter about the turn of events since June 12, when<br class="">they thought they had won.<br class=""><br class="">Like Ms. Pelosi, Representative Keith Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota<br class="">and one of the architects of the plan to scuttle the trade package by<br class="">voting down the worker assistance program, conceded defeat. Beyond a<br class="">symbolic expression of resolve, I dont see the point of fighting,<br class="">he said.<br class=""><br class="">The votes were an enormous victory not only for the president and<br class="">Republican leaders but also for big businesses, agriculture<br class="">interests, Hollywood and Silicon Valley, which pressed hard to keep<br class="">the trade agenda moving. Global commerce has bolstered corporate<br class="">profitability and expanded markets for farmers, but the American<br class="">market remains more open than many of the United States trading<br class="">partners.<br class=""><br class="">Our leaders in Washington proved they could tune out the populists<br class="">and demagogues of the left and the right and take action on an<br class="">important measure to put our economy back on track, said Thomas J.<br class="">Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.<br class=""><br class="">It was also a defeat for environmental groups, liberal activists,<br class="">some Tea Party conservatives and, most of all, organized labor, which<br class="">spent millions of dollars and used enormous organizational muscle<br class="">pressuring lawmakers and trying to kill the trade measure. Unions<br class="">strongly maintain that since the North American Free Trade Agreement<br class="">of 1993, trade agreements have sent millions of high-paying<br class="">manufacturing jobs overseas while depressing wages at home.<br class=""><br class="">As for the Pacific trade deal, many issues remain, including access<br class="">to Japanese auto and agriculture markets, Australian concerns over<br class="">pharmaceutical demands for access to government health insurance,<br class="">labor rights for workers at Vietnamese state-owned enterprises and<br class="">the stewardship of Perus rain forests.<br class=""><br class="">Im going to work harder than ever to bring about a real<br class="">confrontation on these issues, said Representative Sander Levin of<br class="">Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee<br class="">and a leading critic of the Pacific trade agreement. I dont look on<br class="">this as the end of the discussion.</body></html>