Senate passes fast-track bill on Asia trade
NSA-spying block defeated
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama won a victory for his trade agenda Friday with the Senate’s approval of fast-track legislation that likely will make it easier for him to complete a wide-ranging trade deal that would include 11 Pacific Rim nations.
The Senate voted 62-37 for Trade Promotion Authority late Friday, sending the legislation to the House as senators prepared to leave town for a one-week Memorial Day break. The Republican-led House already has left Washington for its recess.
Republican Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton of Arkansas voted in favor of the measure.
Shortly after midnight Friday, the Senate blocked a House bill that would have ended the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of domestic phone records.
The vote was 57-42, short of the 60-vote threshold to move ahead. It leaves the fate of key provisions of the USAPATRIOT Act in doubt with a June 1 deadline less than two weeks away.
That was immediately followed by rejection of a two-month extension to the existing programs. The vote was 45-54, again short of the 60-vote threshold.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said earlier Friday that he hoped the Senate would complete before the break work on the trade bill, on leg-
islation to extend U.S. spying programs and on a measure to continue federal highway funding for two months.
The highway bill was the least contentious of the three on the Senate’s pre-vacation agenda, but only because lawmakers agreed in advance on a two-month extension of the current law. The House and Senate will need to return to the issue this summer.
The Obama administration is seeking the passage of the fast-track trade measure in an unusual alliance with Republicans.
The bill would let Obama submit trade agreements to Congress for an expedited, up-or-down vote without amendments. The president has said he wants to complete the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership and send it for approval under the procedure.
The measure has been opposed by a number of Democrats, including Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Many Democrats remain stung by the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, which is blamed by labor unions for a decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs.
“Everyone knows I disagree with the reason for the trade bill,” Reid said before Friday’s vote. “It’s not going to help the people I want to help. I’m happy multinational corporations are doing well but they’re not my” first priority.
The Senate earlier Friday defeated a proposal on currency manipulation opposed by Obama and adopted a competing currency provision backed by the administration, clearing the way for the final vote on the fast-track trade bill.
On a 70-29 vote, the Senate adopted language crafted by Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., in cooperation with the Treasury Department. It would allow currency rules in trade agreements
but wouldn’t require them for fast-track consideration.
The Senate defeated, 5148, an amendment offered by Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, that would have required trade agreements considered under fast-track authority to have enforceable provisions against currency manipulation.
Senators also defeated an amendment sponsored by Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., that would eliminate the Trade Adjustment Assistance program that aids workers who lose jobs because of trade deals. Also rejected was one by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., that would eliminate from trade agreements a procedure that allows companies to sue governments over violations of trade rules.
An amendment pushed unsuccessfully by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, would have limited the president’s authority in the Asia region to a negotiation only with the countries currently part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
NSA SURVEILLANCE
Also Friday, the White House and top Senate Republicans traded dire warnings as a standoff over a contentious National Security Agency surveillance program continued.
At issue was a section of the USAPATRIOT Act, Section 215, used by the government to justify secretly collecting the “to and from” information about nearly every American landline telephone call. When former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the program in 2013, many Americans — including some lawmakers — were upset to discover the NSA had their calling records.
The House, now on an extended recess of its own, passed the White Housebacked bill that the Senate turned back in its vote early today. The bill would replace the existing program with one that would keep the records in private hands except under limited circumstances. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has fiercely opposed that legislation, calling it untested and potentially harmful to national security.
Republican officials said McConnell, R-Ky., intended to try again, this time with an even shorter renewal of current law.
Whatever the Senate approves must be passed by the House, which has already left Washington for a weeklong Memorial Day break.
In unusually lengthy floor remarks kicking off the Senate’s morning business Friday, McConnell said the system established under the House bill is “untried” and would be “slower and more cumbersome than the one that currently helps keep us safe.”
“At a moment of elevated threat, it would be a mistake to take from our intelligence community any of the valuable tools needed to build a complete picture of terrorist networks and their plans,” McConnell said. “The intelligence community needs these tools to protect Americans.”
Later in the day, White House press secretary Josh Earnest renewed calls to pass the House bill, known as the USA Freedom Act, saying any other legislation would lead to a lapse in legal authority for the phone records program — which would phase out over a six-month period — as well as other less-controversial investigative tools.
“We’ve got people in the U.S. Senate right now who are playing chicken with us,” he said, adding that “there is no plan B” if the House bill is not passed.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., said Thursday that he doubted either measure could clear the 60-vote hurdle, and he suggested a very brief stopgap might pass instead — as short as five days. Burr proposed Thursday extending the six-month transition away from bulk data collection to two years.
But Democrats and civil-libertarian Republicans oppose any extension to the current legal authority, which could complicate efforts to pass a stopgap of any length.
“A short-term extension will not solve our problem,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Friday on the floor. “A short-term extension simply is an invitation for more uncertainty, more litigation, more expense … and more compromise to our national security.”
“The House isn’t going to let this go dark,” Cornyn said after a 90-minute Republican caucus meeting Friday.
The Obama administration has spent days calling and briefing senators and reporters, arguing that the only path forward that avoids legal and operational uncertainty is to pass the USA Freedom Act.
Extending Section 215 as it is, the administration said, would be risky legally. This month, a federal appeals court in New York ruled that the NSA program was unlawful because it was not supported by that statute. It held off on halting the program only because it recognized that Congress was debating the program’s future and might change it or change the law to expressly authorize it.
In light of that opinion, administration officials said, even a short-term reauthorization would risk a federal court stopping the program — and there would be nothing at that point to replace it.
Blumenthal, a former Connecticut attorney general, said any stopgap would create “legal uncertainty that will last long after Congress decides to act.”
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Friday that intelligence agencies risked losing key anti-terror tools without passage of the USA Freedom Act.
“Our biggest fear is that we will lose important eyes on people who have made it clear that their mission is to harm American people,” Lynch said.
VETERANS MEDICAL CARE
As it struggled to move forward on other issues, the Senate on Friday voted to approve a measure allowing veterans to more easily get specialized care from private doctors.
The measure relaxes a rule that makes getting specialized care from local doctors difficult for some veterans, especially those in rural areas. Senators approved the bill by voice vote.
The bill would open up private care to veterans who live within 40 miles of a medical facility run by the Department of Veterans Affairs if the VA site does not offer the care required.
Senators said the measure was needed because some veterans were unable to get federally paid medical care from private doctors under the new Veterans Choice Act. That law blocks veterans from getting private care if they live within 40 miles of a VA medical facility, even if the veteran needs specialized care that is farther away.
Lawmakers from both parties have criticized the 40-mile rule, which they say goes against their intention to put the needs of veterans ahead of all other concerns, including cost.
The measure now goes to the House.