Senate approves 'fast track' trade bill

WASHINGTON — President Obama's trade agenda received a critical boost from the U.S. Senate late Friday with a bipartisan vote in favor of a "fast track" trade bill.

"It's important to President Obama, and it's important to a lot of us here in the chamber," said Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a lead sponsor of the bill.

The Senate voted, 62-37, to approve a six-year renewal of trade promotion authority (TPA), which provides an expedited process to submit trade pacts to Congress.

The bill now heads to the U.S. House, which is expected to begin work on the bill in June.

Final passage was all but assured after pro-trade senators cleared a key procedural hurdle earlier in the evening when a supermajority of senators agreed to move forward with a final vote.

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Passage bookended a week marked by divisive debate over trade and its impact on the U.S. economy.

Efforts to reach a bipartisan compromise on a broad list of amendments to the TPA failed, frustrating Democrats who sought the majority of changes.Democrats were seeking a deal for votes on about 20 amendments, which Hatch said was unreasonable. "We're not going to do that. Let's face it, we're not going to debate this all over again."

Prior to final passage, the Senate defeated a closely-watched amendment by Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, for tougher enforcement of currency manipulation. The provision was aimed at cracking down on China, but the Obama administration threatened a veto if it was included in the final product.

The Senate also defeated amendments by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.

Most Senate Republicans and some Democrats supported the TPA renewal. It would renew presidential authority for the president to submit trade pacts to Congress that can only be approved or rejected, not amended. All modern presidents prior to Obama have had TPA, but it expired in 2007 before Obama took office.

Obama wants fast track authority in order to finalize negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a long-stalled trade pact between the U.S. and 11 Asia-Pacific nations.

The majority of congressional Democrats, backed by labor unions and liberal activists, oppose TPA as a threat to American jobs. Obama has strongly rejected that view, arguing that it will provide the U.S. with a key foothold in emerging markets and boost diplomatic relations in a region that would otherwise be economically dominated by China.

The trade measure is one of three bills that needs to be addressed before the Senate can break.

Senators are also at odds over how to address expiring provisions of the Patriot Act. Leading senators, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., opposed a House-passed and White House-backed bill to fundamentally overhaul how the government can access phone records. However, opponents lack support for alternatives to keep the program in place. A short-term extension was also under negotiation.

The Senate also needs to pass a two-month extension to assist in highway funding. The measure was expected to be approved without issue. A longer-term solution will be subject to a more protracted legislative battle this summer.

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