Time running out for action on fast-track trade authority: Senator

[November 19, 2014]  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers have very little time to consider granting the White House power to fast-track trade deals before Congress finishes up for the year, the head of the Senate committee responsible for trade said on Tuesday.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, a Democrat, held out little chance of passing Trade Promotion Authority before the new Congress is sworn in January. TPA would prohibit Congress from amending trade deals, but would allow lawmakers to set negotiating objectives in return.

When asked about the prospect of a TPA bill passing this year, Wyden said his committee was focused on legislation to extend temporary tax breaks

"We have got 11 days or thereabouts; certainly tax extenders is front and center for the committee right now," said Wyden, who has been working for months on possible changes to a bipartisan TPA bill introduced in January.
 

Business groups and many Republicans have called for the bill to be passed quickly to accelerate negotiations on a Pacific trade pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Some experts say trading partners will not put up their best offers if they fear lawmakers could later pick apart the deal.

Wyden declined to comment when asked if TPA could be attached to the tax extenders legislation and said it was important that any final TPA package address issues including transparency, enforcement and governance.

Some Democrats oppose TPA because they think it diminishes lawmakers' role in overseeing trade agreements, a concern also shared by some conservative Republicans.

Fellow Democrat committee member Ben Cardin said TPA was unlikely to pass this year in any form. "I think it's unlikely that you could reconcile the differences and get it through both the House and Senate," Cardin told reporters.

He hoped Republicans, who will chair both the Senate Finance Committee and its House equivalent in the next Congress, would take Wyden's negotiations on possible changes to the bill into account, noting that would make it easier to win broad support for TPA.

(Reporting by Krista Hughes; Editing by Bernard Orr)

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