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Fast Track/Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) OverviewAt 3:28 in the morning on July 27, 2002, in an extended voting session, the House passed the Trade Act of 2002 (H.R. 3009) by a slim 3-vote margin. On August 1st, the bill was passed in the Senate.
The Trade Act’s main provision was Fast Track negotiating authority, also known as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). The Fast Track mechanism involves special procedures for the negotiation, consideration, and implementation of trade agreements. The U.S. Constitution gives Congress authority over setting the terms of international commerce, and the Executive branch jurisdiction over negotiations with foreign nations. Fast Track, however, delegates Congresses’ authority to the Executive branch so that the Administration is granted the power to negotiate trade agreements, draft implementing legislation to change U.S. law, and sign agreements into international law. Congress’s involvement is restricted to 20 hours of debate and an up or down vote on the final bill with no amendments allowed. Fast Track is an anomaly in terms of legislative procedure in which Congress generally goes through a multi-step process of writing, debating, and amending legislation.
Fast Track was created in 1974, when international trade agreements only dealt with tariffs and quotas. Today, trade agreements have grossly expanded, involving anything from domestic environmental and public health laws to tax and zoning regulations. Because of the far-reaching nature of contemporary trade agreements, more public scrutiny and checks and balances are needed, not less.
In addition to the constraints of the Fast Track procedure, TPA established negotiating objectives for future trade agreements which rather than establishing meaningful objectives on labor and environmental protections, investment provisions, and other crucial areas, afford the Administration a blank check. In several cases, the negotiating objectives in TPA are a step backwards from those in previous grants of Fast Track authority.
The current granting of Fast Track lasts through July 1, 2007 unless a house of Congress adopts an extension disapproval resolution July 1, 2005. The Bush Administration hopes to utilize Fast Track in 2005 to push through an expansion of NAFTA to the rest of the Western Hemisphere, called the Free Trade Area of the Americas, as well as legislation implementing current trade negotiations at the World Trade Organization.
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