Boom: House Rejects Fast Track... For Now

from the down-it-goes dept

Without getting too down in the procedural weeds, just a little while ago, the House of Representatives effectively blocked "fast track authority" for the White House on trade deals -- for now. There was a lot of political maneuvering, and apparently the President started pushing hard on Congressional Democrats to support the trade deals. Many thought the last minute push would make it happen, but with Nancy Pelosi saying that Congress needed to "slow down" fast track, fast track basically came off the table. Again, how this was done involved a lot of gamesmanship and technically a later vote on fast track actually passed very narrowly (219 to 211), but it doesn't matter, because an earlier vote on a different, related measure, needed to pass as well, as the two issues were bundled together. After a bunch of confusing procedural moves, it appears that the House of Representatives will take another shot at this next week, but considering that the key provision went down by a 302 to 126 vote, a lot of arms need to be twisted in the next week and that may not be possible. If the vote next week fails, then things are extremely bleak for the future of "fast track" and the various trade agreements the USTR is pushing.

The whole setup was somewhat confusing, because that official 302 to 126 vote was against Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), a program for helping workers whose jobs are displaced by trade. Such a program is usually supported by Democrats, but was rejected here in order to block Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which was bundled with TAA on the Senate side. The later "show vote" for TPA is meaningless, because it would now need to go back to the Senate for a new vote, and the Senate won't approve TPA without TAA. And, of course, all of this is needed for the USTR and Obama to get the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) approved. And, if you're confused by the fact that TAA, TPA and TPP all sound sorta similar, don't worry: that's all on purpose to confuse the hell out of you and most of the rest of the public.

Rest assured, however, that what happened today was the House of Representatives pumping the brakes on trade agreements like the TPP, after months of really heavy pressure from the White House, which had really ramped up in the past few weeks and days. This is a big blow to the USTR's program. It doesn't mean the House won't eventually get there, but it's not going to be an easy path, and this certainly could put agreements like the TPP (and TTIP and TISA) at risk.

Filed Under: congress, fast track, house of representatives, taa, tpa, tpp, trade promotion, ustr

Congress Finally Releases Fast Track Trade Bill, And It's A Mess

from the why-do-republicans-want-to-do-this? dept

For the past few months there have been rumors every few weeks that Congress was finally going to push out a "fast track" or "trade promotion authority" bill. As we've explained, these bills are Congress giving up their Constitutional right to regulate international trade, and handing the power over the USTR, a part of the executive branch. While some supporters of this argue that it actually gives Congress more power, by laying out the conditions of a trade deal it will approve, that's ridiculous. That might be true if fast track authority were granted prior to a deal being done, but with the TPP and TTIP pretty far along, it's clearly not true. Either way, despite massive opposition from the President's own party, an agreement has been reached between Senator Hatch and Senator Wyden and a trade promotion bill has been released.

Back in February, we presented a simple litmus test concerning whether or not any such effort would actually be reasonable on intellectual property issues: would the text of the bill concerning intellectual property be any different than the last fast track authority bill from 2002 (or an attempt to update it in 2014). Both of those bills had nearly verbatim text. And... as we feared, so does this new bill. Given just how much the internet has changed since 2002, it is simply inconceivable to suggest that the same intellectual property rules that made sense then would continue to make sense now. In other words, despite the involvement of Senator Wyden, it appears that little has been done here to make it clear to the USTR that bad IP rules in the TPP or TTIP agreement are unacceptable. That's a disappointment. Here are the key provisions on intellectual property. Note that they are basically all about enforcement (i.e., protectionism) rather than the free flow of information (which is what you'd expect a trade deal to be about).

providing strong protection for new and emerging technologies and new methods of transmitting and distributing products embodying intellectual property, including in a manner that facilitates legitimate digital trade;

preventing or eliminating discrimination with respect to matters affecting the availability, acquisition, scope, maintenance, use, and enforcement of intellectual property rights;

ensuring that standards of protection and enforcement keep pace with technological developments, and in particular ensuring that rightholders have the legal and technological means to control the use of their works through the Internet and other global communication media, and to prevent the unauthorized use of their works;

providing strong enforcement of intellectual property rights, including through accessible, expeditious, and effective civil, administrative, and criminal enforcement mechanisms; and

preventing or eliminating government involvement in the violation of intellectual property rights, including cyber theft and piracy;

These are basically word for word the same from 2002. In other words, despite over a decade of seeing how the USTR has used trade deals to browbeat other countries into bad intellectual property laws, this new trade promotion authority is saying "go ahead and continue doing just that, no matter what harm it may do to the internet and all of the economic growth it creates."

Unlike some who are totally against any trade deals, I believe there are ways in which increasing actual free trade can be helpful. I had held out hope that the new trade promotion agreement would be more reasonable than what we'd seen in the past. But just looking at the intellectual property section alone, and the fact that it has remained unchanged since the 2002 version -- despite over a decade of seeing how bad IP policy can hurt internet innovation and economic growth -- suggests that this TPA agreement continues the mistakes of the past, rather than fixes them. That's unfortunate.

And so, now comes a very, very weird fight in Congress. With nearly all Democrats opposed to this bill even including the surprise change in position by Senator Chuck Schumer, we'll have a situation where Congressional Republicans try and convince their colleagues to give President Obama more power, by removing the Constitutional authority from Congress, while Congressional Democrats push back against giving their own President that power. It's a really weird fight in oh so many ways.

Filed Under: chuck schumer, fast track, fast track authority, intellectual property, orrin hatch, ron wyden, tafta, trade, trade agreements, trade promotion, trade promotion authority, ttip, ttp, ustr