By Bruce Odessey
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- Secretary of Commerce Don Evans has come to the Senate continuing the Bush administration's push for Congress to pass trade promotion authority (TPA), otherwise known as fast track.

In an April 16 press conference with Republican senators, Evans reiterated President Bush's insistence that the Senate begin considering TPA no later than April 22.

While Senate Democratic Majority Leader Tom Daschle has said that TPA has a high priority among bills for deliberation soon, he has rejected the April 22 deadline.

Daschle has indicated that he would likely have the Senate consider TPA in a package with two other trade bills: one to reauthorize the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA) and the other to reauthorize trade adjustment assistance to workers who lose jobs because of imports.

ATPA expired in December, but President Bush extended for six months the preferential tariffs for imports from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. If that extension expired May 15 without ATPA reauthorization, the United States would have to reimpose the higher tariffs.

"The Andean Trade Preference Act is vitally important to those countries," an important tool to create jobs not tied to illegal drugs, Evans said.

Evans deflected questions about the current administration position on trade adjustment assistance (TAA), the latest obstacle to Senate passage of the trade bills package.

A divided Senate Finance Committee approved TAA legislation that would expand TAA health insurance benefits for affected workers and expand TAA coverage to workers affected by imports only indirectly -- secondary workers who supply a factory directly hurt by imports, for example.

The TAA bill would require the federal government to pay three-fourths of an eligible worker's health insurance premiums for up to 12 months under COBRA, an existing federal program that lets workers keep company-provided health insurance after they lose their jobs.

Senator Chuck Grassley, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, reflected Republican opposition to the Democrats' COBRA-only approach and urged both sides to show flexibility.

"If Republicans insist on ignoring the issue of health care in Trade Adjustment Assistance, then there will be no Trade Promotion Authority," Grassley said. "And if Democrats insist on providing health care only with COBRA and Medicaid, there will be no expanded Trade Adjustment Assistance. So nobody wins."

The House of Representatives passed its own version of TPA 215-214 in December without reference to TAA. If the Senate passes a different TPA bill, then the two sides would still have to pass a final compromise package before sending the legislation to President Bush to sign.

Under TPA, Congress restricts itself only to approve or reject a negotiated trade agreement, within strict time limits and without amendments. Since the previous grant expired early in 1994, attempts to reauthorize TPA have failed over labor and environmental issues.

The Bush administration seeks TPA for negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) as well as negotiations with Chile, Singapore and Central America.

"If the president does not have the authority to negotiate the agreement," Evans said about WTO negotiations, "he will not be taken seriously."

# # #