Ag Policy Blog

Trade Promotion Takes Center Stage in Senate on Earth Day

Chris Clayton
By  Chris Clayton , DTN Ag Policy Editor
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Earth Day will translate into Trade Day for the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.

The committee will mark up several pieces of legislation on Wednesday, including a bill that would approve Trade Promotion Authority for the Obama administration.

According to the committee's website, the senators will bring up the TPP bill, as well as a bill that would extend Trade Adjustment Assistance, a bill Democrats have championed as a necessity to advance TPA.

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Agriculture is well represented on the Senate Finance Committee. Seven members of the committee also serve on the Agriculture Committee, including Ag Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and ranking member Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.

A key consideration is just how long the committee markup will take. That will depend heavily on the number of amendments senators want to bring up. The TPA bill already has 150 provisions, but Democrats who are particularly critical of the bill may push to drag out the affair by bringing up amendment after amendment.

Another bill under consideration on Wednesday is the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a bill that would allow federal agencies such as USDA to offer more technical assistance to African governments in dealing with issues such as sanitary and phyto-sanitary trade rules. Effectively, the thought here is that the U.S., European Union and China are all trying to get African countries to follow their guidelines on food safety and crop approvals. The U.S. needs to be more aggressive in this arena.

The TPA markup comes after a hearing on Tuesday in which Tom Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called on Congress to quickly pass the legislation.

More information and live feed for the markup can be found on the committee website: http://www.finance.senate.gov/…

Follow me on Twitter @ChrisClaytonDTN.

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