Yesterday evening, Congressman Mike Kelly published an opinion piece for TIME.com that urged support for Trade Promotion Authority and detailed how this piece of legislation empowers Congress to supervise the Obama Administration and that of future presidents in securing the strongest possible pro-growth trade agreements.
The Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015 has been approved by the Senate and is now on its way to the House floor. If passed, it will establish a key policy partnership between the executive and legislative branches, which is known as Trade Promotion Authority. This has been given the nickname “fast track,” as it allows for easier congressional consideration of possible and worthy trade deals.
TPA is designed to give Congress an unprecedented and prolonged oversight in crafting trade agreements the president may seek to negotiate.
This program also empowers the public, as the text of an agreement must be made public for 60 days before it can be signed by the President. The legislation to implement the agreement must be made public for an additional 30 days before Congress can consider it.
“In other words, TPA makes it virtually impossible for Obama or any future president to keep the American people or their elected representatives in the dark,” explained Kelly.
Overall, TPA includes almost 150 objectives that an administration must carry out while negotiating. These objectives include protections for cross-border data flows, currency manipulation restrictions, and rules for intellectual property rights.
“It is a critical watchdog mechanism for guaranteeing strong, job-creating agreements like TPP that will benefit American workers and ensure that our country is both shaping and dominating the global economy,” wrote Kelly.
Kelly notes that this has been met with resistance by both the Democratic and Republican parties. While most Democrats dislike TPA for ideological reasons, the Republican “resistance stems mainly from a reluctance to grant President Barack Obama anything resembling more authority, along with the mythical notion that TPA would do such a thing.”
He continues, “Yet an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has fully confirmed that ‘TPA grants no new authority to the President.”
Kelly goes on to cite conservatives John Yoo and Charles Krauthammer, who both assert that TPA does not grant the president any new authority or diminish any congressional power.
“If anything, distrust toward President Obama should make TPA more desirable, not less,” explained Kelly.
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5 Responses
great points altogether, you simply gained a new reader. What would you recommend about your post that you made some days ago? Any positive?
http://www.blackplanet.com/your_page/blog/view_posting.html?pid=4427423&profile_id=65256734&profile_name=miyaj56&user_id=65256734&username=miyaj56
It appears that Mike Kelly is another RINO corporatist hack.
Notwithstanding the oxymoronic claims [“If anything, distrust toward President Obama should make TPA more desirable, not less”] and deafening-absence of any defense of the secrecy involved in the presentation of this phantom-bill [text is private], he provided no insights as to why he would avoid amending it to ensure it wouldn’t be a tool to create open-borders and/or to impose onerous EPA-regs upon Americans via the back-door.
No one has yet explained whether any opposition from Congress couldn’t, itself, be vetoed [just like the Iran Bill]…making permanent whatever BHO might do.
For all the intelligent commentary on the TPP (because that’s what this is about) you pick a deliberately obfuscatory spout by Kelly the Car Salesman?
Oh well, if John you says it is ok…WTF????