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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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