The Senate voted 60-38 in favor of sending Trade Promotion Authority (Fast Track) to President Obama Wednesday, with Senator Feinstein voting for, and Senator Boxer against. This legislation allows for up-or-down votes on trade treaties submitted to Congress for the next six years, without the ability to add amendments. A week ago, Fast Track’s chances looked dim, failing a procedural vote in the House by strong Democratic opposition of a combined track package; Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urging her colleagues to “slow down the fast track”. A separate Fast Track bill was later passed by the House, this time without Trade Adjustment Assistance, funding for programs designed to retrain American workers who lose their jobs due to trade.
After months of rallies, sit-ins, and intense community lobbying in opposition to Fast Track in California and across the country; with environmental groups like the Sierra Club in opposition over leaked texts of the TPP signaling weak language in endangered species and climate protections, unions like the California Labor Federation in opposition over previous trade deals like NAFTA that have led to an outsourcing of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing and service-sector jobs, and consumer advocacy groups like Food & Water Watch in opposition over food safety, for instance in imported seafood; Fast Track will almost certainly be signed by the President who administered a full-court press and lobbying campaign in support of the measure.
Sierra Club National’s executive director Michael Brune in a statement after this week’s vote “Fast tracking toxic trade deals is bad for workers, our communities and our environment no matter how many times Congress brings it up.”
In a strange coalition, even conservatives were united with progressives during Fast Track’s rumblings through Capitol Hill, with Presidential candidates Senators. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz voting against the measure, citing grant of too much power to the President.
Trade Adjustment Assistance will almost certainly be voted on this week in the House and Democrats are now united in passing that measure. For fair trade activists, the fight now lies in opposing the Trans Pacific Partnership.