*EPF413 06/27/2002
House Votes 216-215 Approving Trade Bill Conference with Senate
(Negotiating power, Andes benefits survive another test) (780)

By Bruce Odessey
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- By the narrowest margin the U.S. House of Representatives has kept alive a trade legislation package including negotiating authority for the president by voting to take it to conference with the Senate.

The majority House Republicans eked out only a 216-215 vote June 26 for the measure, which allows a House-Senate conference to start crafting a final compromise version of the trade package.

For a trade package to become law requires that the House and Senate pass a final version and the president sign it.

The House and Senate versions differ substantially, however, especially over assistance for workers who lose their jobs as a result of imports.

The House-passed version was considered under an unusual and controversial procedure put together by Representative Bill Thomas, Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. He predicted conferees could produce a final bill before Congress' August recess.

Thomas' measure contained some trade provisions never passed by the House, including some on workers' assistance and tariff preferences, prompting vigorous criticism from Democrats for the departure from standard legislative practice.

"If we don't have any legislation passed, we make it up as we go along," said Representative Charles Rangel, the senior Democrat on Ways and Means.

"This is not just an insult to the House rules and traditions," he said. "This is an insult to the American people."

Only 11 Democrats voted for Thomas' conference measure, 10 fewer than voted in December for the House version of trade promotion authority (TPA), otherwise known as fast track, which passed 215-214.

Thomas argued to reporters later that he had no choice except to include provisions not yet passed by the House because the Senate-passed package had parallel provisions.

The measure includes House versions of the following provisions:

-- TPA, long sought by the Bush administration for trade negotiations especially in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) as well as with Chile and Singapore. Under TPA, Congress restricts itself only to approve or reject a negotiated trade agreement, within strict time limits and without amendments. Since the previous grant expired early in 1994, attempts to reauthorize TPA have failed.

The Senate version of TPA, but not the House version, includes the Dayton-Craig amendment, strongly opposed by the Bush administration and most House Republicans. It would essentially negate the up-or-down vote restrictions for congressional consideration of trade agreement provisions affecting antidumping and other trade remedy laws.

-- Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA) reauthorization, passed by the House in November. Previous ATPA authorization extending duty-free treatment on imports from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia expired in December; the House provision would extend it through 2006.

-- Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) reauthorization, approved by Ways and Means but never passed by the House. Previous GSP authorization extending duty-free treatment on selected items from eligible developing countries expired in September.

-- Reauthorization of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) benefits for workers who lose their jobs as a result of imports. This version has health care insurance provisions more generous than the version passed by the House in December but less generous than the Senate-passed bill.

-- A provision never before considered in the House authorizing spending to compensate foreigners when the United States loses certain WTO dispute-settlement cases, those where the U.S. government decides against modifying its offending law or regulation.

-- A provision that would erode textile tariff preferences for African and Caribbean countries passed by Congress two years ago. This provision reflects a deal made by House Republican leaders with Republicans from southern textile-producing districts that clinched the December TPA vote. The Bush administration supported that deal.

The textile provision would extend tariff preferences on U.S. knit or woven fabric assembled in the Caribbean or African countries only if it was dyed and finished in the United States.

It would extend preferences also on hybrid-cut apparel made of components cut in the United States or in a beneficiary country that are in turn made only from fabric and yarns wholly formed in the United States.

Thomas argued that the provision would apply the dying and finishing requirements to the hybrid-cut garments.

Republicans from southern textile districts, however, interpreted the textile provision as falling short of the December deal and voted against Thomas' measure.

House Republican leaders picked up support for the measure, however, from 13 other Republicans who had voted against TPA in December, about half of them from steel-producing districts benefiting from President Bush's March imposition of temporary higher steel duties.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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