Anti-fast-tracking activists rally in front of Nancy Pelosi's office June 9.
Desperate to squeeze out another few votes from the Republican Party's rightmost wing in favor of the fast-track trade bill, House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan
introduced an amendment Wednesday that would "ensure that trade agreements do not require changes to U.S. law or obligate the United States with respect to global warming or climate change." At a committee meeting Wednesday, Ryan said: “It’s just making sure that if the administration wants to go down a path of seeking legislative changes in climate or immigration, they can’t do it through trade agreements.”
The amendment was inserted into a customs and trade law enforcement bill being considered alongside the fast-tracking legislation, formally called Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). If passed it would prohibit the U.S. Trade Representative from negotiating climate change elements as part of any trade deal during the six-year life of the TPA, whether that deal is the Trans-Pacific Partnership or other agreements.
In a rare example of Republican leadership cooperation with the White House, Ryan is acting as point man for the administration in getting GOP representatives to say yes to TPA, which would expedite presidential authority for negotiating trade deals and limit Congress to and up-or-down vote, with no amendments of filibusters allowed. The vast majority of House Republicans supports TPA, but many in the tea party faction oppose it.
The vast majority of Democrats—90 percent at the moment—are against the legislation. So far, only 19 have publicly declared for it. But Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairman Raúl Grijalva says there are 27 undecided Democrats. The president has been pushing hard to move those representatives into the "yes" column. According to many sources, so is House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, although she has not declared how she herself will vote.
Read some Democratic reaction to the amendment below the fold.
At the Huffington Post, Laura Barron-Lopez has an excellent take on the reaction to the climate change amendment situation:
Progressive Democrats and green groups argue the anti-climate provision included in a customs enforcement bill would "threaten" the administration’s push to stave off an increase in the planet’s temperature and undermine work toward an ambitious international treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), a progressive leader among Democrats, said he hopes the climate provision makes his colleagues rethink their positions on customs and fast track. [...]
“What we are doing is going along with the deniers and saying [climate change] doesn’t exist to this small set of brains, and now we are going to make that part of this super-duper trade agreement to end all trade agreements, so people should think about it,” Grijalva said.
So they should. But progressive Democrats have been opposed to fast-tracking from the beginning. It's that cohort of mostly conservative Democrats that is in question. It now appears congressional leaders believe they have the needed 217 votes for passage plus the cushion of half a dozen or so that Speaker John Boehner said he wanted secured before bringing the matter to the House floor. A vote has been scheduled for Friday.
Please join us in calling or emailing representatives urging them to oppose fast-track legislation.