[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 110 (Wednesday, September 4, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8194-S8195]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          H.R. 3009, THE ANDEAN TRADE PREFERENCE EXPANSION ACT

  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise to urge my colleagues to join me 
in opposition to the motion before us, on passage of the conference 
report on H.R. 3009, the Andean Trade Preference Expansion Act. During 
the Senate's consideration of this act, the bill's managers stripped 
H.R. 3009 of the language approved by the House and offered a 
substitute amendment comprising three measures reported by the Finance 
Committee. The first, H.R. 3009, is indeed the Andean Trade Preference 
Expansion Act. But the amendment added as well two other major trade-
related bills. The second measure, H.R. 3005, would grant the President 
fast-track authority for certain proposed trade negotiations, and also, 
retroactively, for other negotiations already underway. And the third, 
S. 1209, would reauthorize the Trade Adjustment Assistance and NAFTA 
Transitional Adjustment Assistance programs. H.R. 3009 thereby became a 
legislative vehicle for linking together three independent measures, 
all trade-related to be sure but each with its own focus and 
provisions.
  Let me say first that I am troubled by this procedural maneuvering. 
The three measures, each with far-reaching and very different 
ramifications, were considered independently of one another in 
committee. In my view they should have been considered separately on 
the floor of the Senate; each should have been amended and voted up or 
down on its own merits. Linked together, each measure became a hostage 
to the other two, a procedure which in my view ill served the American 
people.
  I am particularly concerned by the linking of trade promotion 
authority with trade adjustment assistance. TAA addresses specific 
problems which Congress has defined. In contrast, trade promotion 
authority is very broad, potentially reaching into areas we cannot even 
identify. In fact the term is a euphemism. What we have before us is 
the procedure known more precisely and accurately as ``fast-track,'' a 
procedure that radically redefines and limits the authority granted to 
Congress in article II, section 8 of the Constitution ``to regulate 
commerce with foreign nations.''
  It is easily forgotten that ``fast-track'' is a relatively new 
innovation

[[Page S8195]]

whose long-term consequences are as yet little understood. It dates 
back only to the Trade Act of 1974, and it lapsed in 1994. It differs 
fundamentally from the ``Proclamation Authority'' that Congress granted 
the President in the Reciprocal Trade Act of 1934, which gave the 
Executive power to set tariffs within limits and periods of time set by 
the Congress. Proclamation Authority did not grant to the President 
authority to negotiate trade agreements requiring changes in U.S. law, 
let alone limit the discretion of Congress to approve or reject such 
changes. In contrast, fast track authority does both. It greatly 
expands the latitude of the Executive to negotiate an agreement, while 
sharply restricting the latitude of the Congress to consider any 
implementing legislation that results from the negotiation. Fast track 
guarantees that the executive branch can write legislation implementing 
a trade agreement and have that legislation voted on, up or down, 90 
days after it is submitted, with only 20 hours of debate and no 
opportunity for amendment. While vast change in U.S. law may be at 
stake, under fast-track procedures Congress becomes little more than a 
rubber stamp.
  In no other area of U.S. international negotiation and agreement are 
arguments for fast track made. All major U.S. tax, arms control, 
territorial, defense and other treaties are still accomplished through 
established constitutional procedures, fully respecting the role of the 
Congress.
  Proponents of fast track often argue that in the area of trade, 
however, the Executive will find it difficult if not impossible to 
negotiate agreements. This is certainly not the case. Fast-track 
procedures are relevant only to trade agreements that require Congress 
to make changes in existing U.S. law in order for the agreements to be 
implemented. Most trade agreements do not require legislative changes 
and are thus not subject to fast track consideration. Of the hundreds 
of agreements entered into between 1974-1994, when fast-track authority 
was in effect, only five have required fast track procedures: the GATT 
Tokyo Round of 1979, the United States-Israel Free Trade Agreement of 
1985, the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement of 1988; the North 
American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, of 1993, and the GATT Uruguay 
Round of 1994. In 1994, after just twenty years, fast track lapsed, and 
in 1997 the Congress declined to extend it. Yet since 1994 hundreds of 
trade agreements have been successfully negotiated and implemented.
  For example, in 2000 the office of the Trade Representative 
identified the following agreements, negotiated without fast track, as 
having ``truly historic importance'': The Information Technology, IT, 
Agreement, under which 40 countries eliminated import duties and other 
charges on IT products representing more than 90 percent of the 
telecommunications market; the Financial Services Agreement, which has 
helped U.S. service suppliers expand commercial operations and find new 
market opportunities around the world; the Basic Telecommunications 
Agreement, which opened up 95 percent of the world telecommunications 
market to competition; and the Bilateral agreement on China's WTO 
accession, which opened the largest economy in the world to American 
products and services.

  I could cite many other examples. During this period the Executive 
negotiated and then obtained Congressional approval of normalization of 
our trade relations with China, a new Caribbean Basin initiative bill, 
and the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act. Without any fast-track 
authority the previous administration negotiated major bilateral trade 
agreements with Jordan and Vietnam. The ground-breaking United States-
Jordan agreement was submitted to and approved by Congress in January 
of last year. And although negotiated by the previous administration, 
the United States-Vietnam agreement was actually submitted to Congress 
by the current administration. It was approved in June of last year.
  Furthermore, in the absence of fast-track authority the current 
administration has found it possible and prudent to carry forward the 
negotiations for bilateral free trade agreements with Chile and 
Singapore which were initiated by its predecessor. The case of Chile is 
particularly instructive. In 1994 Chile declined an invitation to join 
NAFTA, citing the Administration's failure to obtain fast track 
authority. Six years later, however, Chile reconsidered its position 
and in 2000 entered into negotiations on a United States-Chile 
bilateral agreement. Negotiations since then have continued more or 
less on a monthly basis, and in a report dated April 1, 2002 and titled 
``Chile: Political and Economic Conditions and U.S. Relations'', the 
Congressional Research Service concluded that ``Chile's trade policies 
and practices indicate that it is willing and able to conclude and live 
up to a broad bilateral FTA with the U.S., suggesting that this could 
be a comparatively easy trade agreement for the U.S. to conclude.''
  In 1997, I opposed the previous administration's request. It was my 
view then, as it is my view now, that the arguments for fast track have 
been vastly overstated--they simply ignore our continuing success in 
concluding agreements that open foreign markets to U.S. exporters and 
benefit U.S. consumers. Chile and Singapore offer a case in point. The 
absence of fast track has not prevented negotiations with either, yet 
this legislation would apply the procedure retroactively. It is not 
clear why this should be necessary.
  Additionally, I want to remind my colleagues that in December of last 
year our colleagues in the House of Representatives approved H.R. 3005 
by a single vote, 215-214. Writing in the Washington Post, David Broder 
called this a ``shaky victory on trade.'' He observed about that 
``longtime supporters of liberal trade'' voted against fast track 
because ``trade agreements now go far beyond tariff reduction and 
involve tradeoffs on intellectual property rights, environmental 
standards, basic labor laws and other issues''--issues too important, 
in Broder's words, ``to delegate sweeping authority to any 
administration to negotiate them away.'' These are the concerns, he 
wrote, of ``people who are by no means protectionists.''
  Indeed, these are the concerns of the American people, and it is for 
this reason that trade agreements affecting vital areas of social and 
economic policy should not be hurried through Congress using an 
expedited and restrictive procedure.
  Finally, not only do I disapprove of this measure as passed by the 
Senate, but I am deeply troubled by two very significant changes made 
to the legislation in conference. Whereas the Senate bill provided that 
employees whose factories move overseas would automatically qualify for 
health insurance, job training, and unemployment benefits, under the 
compromise, only workers whose companies relocate to countries that 
have a preferential trade agreement with the U.S. would be covered. 
Other workers would have to undergo a qualifying procedure through 
which the USTR must determine that the move was linked to trade. 
Additionally, during the Senate's consideration of the trade bill, 
Senators Dayton and Craig offered an amendment to the fast-track bill 
to allow Congress to consider provisions within trade agreements that 
weaken U.S. trade remedy laws. The amendment had the support of 61 
Senators and was adopted by voice vote. Following passage of the trade 
bill, I joined many of my colleagues in urging the conferees to 
preserve the Dayton-Craig language. Under the compromise reached, 
however, this language was removed from the bill and replaced by non-
binding language allowing members to simply express their objections to 
a particular trade provision. And as my colleagues are aware, over the 
weekend, our colleagues in the House approved the package that emerged 
from the conference by a margin of 215-212, a margin greater than that 
of last year's House vote by only two. It seems clear that the 
compromise before us is not a consensus on trade and I would urge my 
colleagues to oppose the conference report to H.R. 3009.

                          ____________________