Bush Reps to Push for 'Fast Track' Trade Authority

Bush Reps to Push for 'Fast Track' Trade Authority

By JIM ABRAMS

.c The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (June 21) - The White House is pressing its

case to Congress that

President Bush should have unfettered authority to

negotiate new regional and

international trade pacts.

Commerce Secretary Donald Evans and U.S. Trade

Representative Robert Zoellick

are scheduled to argue that position before the Senate

Finance Committee on

Thursday, a day after Bush criticized opponents who want

to add labor and

environmental conditions to his ''fast track'' trade

authority.

''There are some who want to put codicils on the trade

promotion authority

for one reason: They don't like free trade,'' Bush told

the Business

Roundtable, an association of corporate executives.

''They're protectionists

and isolationists and we must reject that kind of

thought here in America.''

Trade promotion authority allows the president to

negotiate new trade deals

that Congress can reject or approve but not amend. Every

president has had

enhanced authority since Congress began granting it in

1974.

But President Clinton's trade authority expired in 1994

and Congress, partly

because of Democratic concerns over the labor and

environmental issues,

failed in several attempts to renew it.

In a first day of hearings on trade authority, Finance

Committee Chairman Max

Baucus, D-Mont., said he feared the gap on the

environmental and labor

question was widening.

''I must confess to increasing pessimism'' as to whether

Congress will

approve that authority this year, he said Wednesday.

Most Republicans say that worker rights and protecting

the environment should

be dealt with separately from trade negotiations, and

last week House

Republicans introduced trade authority legislation that

does not mention

those issues.

At Wednesday's hearing, Baucus and two Democratic

leaders on trade issues,

Reps. Charles Rangel of New York and Sander Levin of

Michigan, rejected

Bush's argument that their side was against expanded

trade.

''Some of us believe that we can do these things and

protect certain values

that are not just American values which we're so proud

of, but international

humane values,'' Rangel said.

Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, said he was working with

Sen. Bob Graham,

D-Fla., on legislation they hoped would find a middle

ground on the trade

issue.

Baucus said that while consensus was still possible,

''no bill is preferable

to a bad bill. If that means working beyond this year, I

believe we must take

the time to do it correctly.''

He noted that President Reagan vetoed a fast track bill

in 1986, the year the

Uruguay Round of trade talks was launched, and that a

U.S.-Jordan free trade

bill, which contains labor provisions, was completed by

the Clinton

administration without fast track authority.

Passing legislation this year would give the president a

freer hand when the

World Trade Organization launches new trade talks this

year. The United

States is also now involved in negotiations for a

Western Hemisphere free

trade zone.

AP-NY-06-21-01 0330EDT