House Leadership Not Likely to Rush Trade Votes, Say Experts

House Rules Committee officials are still hammering out the guidelines for the legislative process on that side of the Capitol, said the experts. Leadership is likely to strive for a limited number of votes on amendments, or even none at all, they said. The committee hasn't yet announced a "meeting" on trade legislation, a spokeswoman said.

House leadership can choose to hold floor votes on the Senate-passed TPA and TAA, as well as the preference package, sending all three bills to President Barack Obama’s desk. Customs Reauthorization is headed for a legislative conference with the goal of sending Obama a compromise customs bill by the end of June (see 1505200025).

House Leadership Readies to Nail Down Trade Support

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., makes no mention of trade in his schedule for the week of June 1 (here). But Ryan and House leadership have stumped hard for trade legislation over recent weeks, and the Ways and Means chairman sent a letter to Republican House colleagues on June 1 urging those on the fence to jump on board the legislation. "I know some say you don’t trust the president. That’s exactly why we need this TPA," said Ryan, in the letter released by his office. "It provides unprecedented accountability and transparency. It empowers you, not him. And it gives us our best opportunity to advance fair, effective trade agreements over the next six years."

Top-ranking Republicans will now really start to work to turn out “yes” votes, said a former House leadership staffer. “They haven’t really whipped this bill with a traditional approach yet,” he said. “They didn’t know what the Senate would produce.”

The Senate took two full weeks of floor time to debate and ultimately approve all four trade bills, and lawmakers didn’t pass TPA and TAA until late on Friday night before recess (see 1505260014). Democrats tried to roll all the bills together, only to relent in that demand after Republicans made a number of concessions. Now that the legislation is in on the House side of Capitol Hill, leadership will start “really diving into the whip effort,” said the former staffer.

Leadership could still schedules votes later this week if they lock down enough support, but that timing would defy “conventional wisdom,” said Ron Sorini, who leads the Sorini, Samet & Associates lobby firm. “There’s no reason to delay,” said Sorini. “Once they have the votes secure, they’ll vote.”

Hard Numbers Still Elusive

The recess also put the brakes on whipping votes, said Mayer Brown consultant Warren Payne, who just left his position in March as policy director on the Ways and Means Committee. “Members have been back in their districts so it’s hard for leadership to whip and get a solid vote count when members aren’t here,” said Payne. “I would say the Republican defections are decreasing every day. House leadership and Chairman Ryan are making progress and doing a very good job to slowly but steadily increase the GOP votes.”

There remains significant uncertainty on the level of support for trade legislation, with many Republicans refusing to take a firm position on the bills. Some trade experts have said in recent weeks there are only 25-30 expected “no” votes from Republicans (see 1504270008). But leadership is likely to stay tight-lipped about the hard numbers, said the former staffer. “No one in leadership is going to be talking about specific Republican numbers,” he said. “They'll keep that close to the vest and see what the Democrats can produce.”

Many House Democrats have continued to rail against TPA, arguing the legislation will pave the way for a Trans-Pacific Partnership that will harm both American workers and people in TPP nations. Ways and Means ranking member Sandy Levin, D-Mich., again championed his own version of TPA, which includes negotiating directives instead of objectives, before the House departed for recess (see 1505220017). But Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., joined the ranks of House Democrat TPA supporters in recent days (see 1505290011). That pushed their numbers to around 20, said Brian Diffell, a lobbyist with the Washington Tax & Public Policy Group.

Still, leadership views TPA and TAA passage as “very doable,” said Diffell. “They’re within striking distance, but they need to get that to a realistic vote count that they’re confident with,” said Diffell. The Democratic count “probably needs to go a little farther north to be comfortable,” he said.

TPA Trafficking Language Heightens Focus on Customs

In the event trade legislation does pass the House and garners Obama’s signature, the administration’s goal of locking down TPP will still be hindered by a TPA human trafficking provision. The lone difference between the Senate bill and its House counterpart is a measure that would bar TPA legislative mechanisms for passing trade agreement implementation legislation with TPP-party Malaysia because of that country’s level of human trafficking activity (see 1504270008).

Lawmakers are likely to tack onto Customs Reauthorization human trafficking language that supersedes the TPA language as part of a conference on the legislation, said a Senate aide recently and the experts (see 1505260037). For supporters of customs legislation, the Malaysia hang-up could prove critical, said Diffell. “It provides a lot of certainty to the members who want to see those enforcement provisions enacted,” he said. “That’s a priority now because basically the success of TPA is linked to customs. So it provides certainty.”

In order to make it to a customs conference, House leadership will first have to approve their own Customs Reauthorization legislation, which experts expect to be the Ways and Means-reported bill, HR-1907 (here). The sequencing for all four trade votes remain unclear, said Sorini. "These decisions get made by a small group of leadership members based, I think, on the best way to securely pass TPA and TAA," he said. The preference package, the least controversial trade bill on the agenda, includes renewals for the Generalized System of Preferences, the African Growth and Opportunity Act and the two Haiti tariff preference level programs.