Today’s vote by the U.S. Senate to pass the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) is a major step forward in finally moving the stalled free trade agreements with Colombia, Korea and Panama. Those agreements — and new opportunities for growth of American manufacturing exports — have languished since 2006.

Meanwhile, our competitors in Europe, Canada, Japan, and other manufacturing powerhouses have continued to negotiate, sign and implement bilateral trade agreements that gain them preferential access to growing markets around the globe. Their manufacturing exports supplant and replace ours in market after market.

For a lasting economic recovery and job creation, increasing our manufacturing exports will be a key factor. The single easiest way to increase our exports is to lower tariff and non-tariff barriers in other countries. Trade agreements promote jobs and exports. President Obama has touted the job-creating nature of trade agreements repeatedly in recent weeks. He has asked Congress to pass the pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.

Now that the Senate has passed TAA, it is imperative that President Obama send the trade agreements to the House for approval. There is bipartisan support for all three in the House and Senate, and leadership has vowed to move quickly on passage. All we need is for the agreements to be transmitted. They should be sent immediately.

Doug Goudie is director of international trade policy, National Association of Manufacturers.

Catching up with last week’s blizzard of legislative action and regulatory excess…

• On Thursday, Dec. 23, the Environmental Protection Agency circumvented the policymaking branch of government, the U.S. Congress, and announced its plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from such sources as coal-fired power plants and refineries. In a statement, Jay Timmons, executive vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers, said, “Today’s announcements demonstrate the EPA’s commitment to move forward with an overreaching agenda that will only raise energy costs and hurt manufacturers’ ability to grow, create jobs and compete in the global marketplace.” 

• As its final legislative action before adjourning, the House on Wednesday, Dec. 22, agreed to the Senate’s stripped-down version of H.R. 6517, the Omnibus Trade Act. With removal of the critical Miscellaneous Trade Benefits language, the bill is more minibus: It extends for six weeks Andean Trade Preferences Act benefits for Colombia — well-deserved — and for Ecuador, now governed by the leftist government of Rafael Correa, which has attacked the rule of law and violated its treaty obligations. The bill also extends Trade Adjustment Assistance authority for retraining programs for workers affected by trade. The incoming Ways & Means chairman, Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), commented, “I would rather have passed a longer-term extension of ATPA and TAA, and unfortunately, the other provisions of the House bill died in the Senate.  I look forward to working in the next Congress on additional trade legislation, including enacting the trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea, and Panama.” 

• Also on Wednesday, the House approved the Senate-amended version of H.R. 847, the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, by a vote of 206-60, with 168 members not voting. The earlier House bill had a pricetag of $7.4 billion; thanks largely to the doughtiness of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), the total cost has been reduced to $4.2 billion with stronger oversight provisions included and a cap imposed on trial lawyer fees. (Coburn news release.) The compromise language replaces the House’s early funding mechanism, a tax on multinational companies that do business in the United States. Instead, the law charges  “a 2 percent excise fee on foreign manufacturers/companies located in countries where the U.S. does not have an international procurement agreement receiving government disbursements made under future procurement agreements.  In addition, the bill would extend fees on H-1B and L-1 visas until 2015.” (Senate GOP release.) 

• The Senate confirmed federal judges, but did not act on two controversial nominees to U.S. District Court of interest to manufacturers: John “Jack” McConnell, the Rhode Island trial lawyer who masterminded the state’s litigation against paint manufacturers, and former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler, Jr., who helped strike down the state’s limits on medical liability and promoted the scheme of “market share liability” for paint manufacturers. 

• On Tuesday, Dec. 21, the House of Representatives agreed to the Senate amendments to the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act as contained in H.R. 2751, and the bill now goes to President Obama for his signature. The NAM supported the bill. For more, see Food Manufacturing’s report, “What The Food Safety Modernization Act Means To You.”  (continue reading…)

Many people are assiduously trying to reach a political modus vivendi that permits a vote on the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Seems like there might be reasons for optimism given recent progress on Trade Adjustment Assistance.

Pending free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea stand on their own merits, but if it takes a little logrolling to break a logjam, a compromise or two on Trade Adjustment Assistance, then fine.

From National Journal’s Congress Daily:

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus said [Wednesday] negotiators are “quite close” to reaching agreement on a Trade Adjustment Assistance package for displaced workers, although he declined to give a time line for action. “There’s only so many legislative weeks left,” he said. “I’d like to get it done by the end of this month, but I can’t guarantee anything.” Baucus and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, with whom he co-sponsored a TAA expansion bill, announced today a new business coalition to help spur movement on the measure. Baucus and Snowe would double job-training funds, expand coverage to service-sector workers, and increase tax credits for health insurance. They also want to expand coverage to workers whose job loss was not a direct result of trade with countries that the United States has a trade agreement with, as the current TAA program is structured.

More from Reuters, “Colombia still sees chance US will OK trade deal.” And from Investor’s Business Daily, “Breaking A Logjam?“:

In a release on Colombia’s presidential Web site, Trade Minister Luis Guillermo Plata said U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson advised him that efforts to persuade congressional Democrats to hold a vote on the long-stalled pact were starting to look up. Such a vote could be held as soon as the interim between November’s election and the inauguration of the next president.

Paulson has been working the Hill almost weekly selling the virtues of free trade, and it might finally be bearing fruit. Spokeswoman Brooke McLaughlin said “he conveyed (to Plata) how hard he was working to make progress in Congress.”

But would a Colombia vote have to wait until after the November elections? Time’s wasting…

From Commerce Secretary Gonzalez, May 5:

Yesterday at 8:51 p.m., the Colombia Tariff Ticker rolled to a staggering $1 billion. The ticker tracks the estimated tariffs imposed on American-made goods entering Colombia since the signing of the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement 531 days ago. The Agreement would remove tariffs on U.S. exports to Colombia if approved by Congress. Every single second that goes by without a vote on the Agreement costs roughly $22, and nearly $2 million every day.