It's customary for the Administration to get the approval of the Congressional leadership before submitting an agreement negotiated under trade promotion authority (fast track) for ratification. Bush Administration leaders are debating whether or not to submit the pending trade agreements with Columbia, Panama, and Korea without that approval if necessary (Will the Bush Administration "Force" Congressional Action?, The Custom-House, January 12, 2008)
The Columbia deal is widely expected to come up first, and will be controversial because of human rights issues. Doug Palmer reports on concerns that, if the Administration pushes ahead on Columbia, without getting the signal from the Congressional leadership, the fast track concept may end up wrecked for all time, as a trade policy tool: Colombia trade fight could cripple US fast track (Doug Palmer, Reuters, via the Guardian, January 18, 2008).
The essence of "fast track" trade promotion authority is this:
Although the U.S. Constitution gives Congress jurisdiction over trade, lawmakers have traditionally delegated authority to negotiate deals to the White House.
To assure foreign governments that Congress would act on those agreements in a timely manner, policymakers devised a legislative procedure in 1974 that came to be known as fast-track or, more recently, "trade promotion authority."...
...the law requires both houses of Congress to approve or reject a trade deal within 90 days of receiving it from the White House and without making any changes. But ultimately, parliamentary experts say, fast track is a congressional "rule" for considering trade deals. Lawmakers can vote to change the procedures if they want or even exclude a certain trade agreement from fast track protection.
"The parts that deal with procedures in the House and the Senate remain exercises of the rule making power and subject to change by further rule making," said a congressional expert on House legislative procedures.
If the Administration pushes ahead without the Congressional approval:
...if Bush submits the Colombia agreement to Congress over the objections of senior Democrats, it is possible lawmakers could create a new rule releasing themselves from the obligation of having to consider the pact....
In the long run that could be worse for U.S. trade policy than an outright rejection of the Colombia trade pact. It would destroy fast track as a procedure for getting trade deals through Congress, said R.K. "Judge" Morris, president of the Global Business Dialogue, a trade advocacy group.
"Once you have demonstrated that the law isn't a law, in the sense that it can't be tested by the courts and you can't enforce it, then it loses value," Morris said....
The story has some interesting discussion of the human rights issues associated with the Columbia deal. I've left these out to focus on the fast track debate. This is the second Doug Palmer article on the issue of Congressional leadership approval prior to submission of an agreement under TPA. The Custom-House post cited above was also based on a Palmer article.
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