Fast Track: A Legal, Historical, and Political Analysis

Fast Track: A Legal, Historical, and Political Analysis
Author: Hal Shapiro
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2006-07-19
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9047440005

Fast track was conceived as a mundane procedural mechanism to enhance the president's credibility in negotiating complex multilateral trade agreements by streamlining the congressional approval process into an up-or-down vote in return for enhanced congressional oversight. It allows the President to negotiate international trade agreements knowing that Congress will provide a timely vote on the agreement without amendments. Given its seminal importance to the trade debate, however, fast track has acquired greater significance and controversy. This incisive text examines whether fast track is an evolutionary advancement in U.S. international economic agreements or an end-run around the constitutional treaty provision; whether it is a reflection of the shared constitutional powers of Congress and the President in the area of foreign affairs or an unconstitutional abdication of Congress’s power to regulate foreign commerce and its ability to set its own procedural rules; whether fast track is needed to put the United States on even footing with other nations that have efficient international agreement approval mechanisms or a unique U.S. ratification short-cut not found elsewhere; whether there is a better way for the United States to approve and implement trade agreements; whether the arguments of the left and right on fast track need a new focus; and whether there is a role for the states to play in U.S. trade policy formation. Fast Track argues that the time has come for the United States to end its perennial debate over the process by which we approve international trade agreements – i.e., whether to resort to fast track or not – and begin a debate on how best to prepare American citizens to compete in a globalized world. There are signs that the United States is not ready and may even be falling behind. Without question, this book can help formalize a requisite national strategy. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.

Crs Report for Congress

Crs Report for Congress
Author: Congressional Research Service: The Libr
Publisher: BiblioGov
Total Pages: 22
Release: 2013-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9781295251650

One of the major trade issues in the 107th Congress is whether or not Congress approves trade promotion authority (formerly called fast-track authority) for the President to negotiate trade agreements with expedited procedures for implementing legislation. Under this authority, Congress agrees to consider legislation to implement the trade agreements (usually nontariff trade agreements) under a procedure with mandatory deadlines, no amendment, and limited debate. The President is required to consult with congressional committees during negotiation and notify Congress at major stages. The President was granted this authority almost continuously from 1974 to 1994, but the authority lapsed and has not been renewed. A major issue in the first session of the 107th Congress was the role of labor and the environment as objectives in trade agreements. Differences were largely along party lines. On December 6, 2001, the House passed TPA bill H.R. 3005 by a vote of 215-214. The bill covers tariff and nontariff agreements entered into by June 1, 2005. For expedited procedures to apply to legislation to implement a trade agreement, the agreement would have to "make progress" toward meeting the outlined negotiating objectives and satisfy other specified conditions. The President would have to consult with congressional bodies, ...

Crs Report for Congress

Crs Report for Congress
Author: Congressional Research Service: The Libr
Publisher: BiblioGov
Total Pages: 22
Release: 2013-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9781294251989

One of the major trade issues in the 107th Congress was whether or not Congress would approve trade promotion authority (formerly called fast-track authority) for the President to negotiate trade agreements with expedited procedures for implementing legislation. Under this authority, Congress agrees to consider legislation to implement the trade agreements (usually nontariff trade agreements) under a procedure with mandatory deadlines, no amendment, and limited debate. The President is required to consult with congressional committees during negotiation and notify Congress at major stages. The President was granted this authority almost continuously from 1974 to 1994. After that, the authority lapsed. On December 6, 2001, the House passed trade promotion authority (TPA) bill H.R. 3005 by a vote of 215-214. An important issue was the designation of labor and the environment as negotiating objectives. On May 23, 2002, the Senate wrapped TPA into a comprehensive trade bill, H.R. 3009, "the Trade Act of 2002." The bill included TPA (in title XXI), reauthorization of Andean trade preferences, extension of the Generalized System of Preferences, and trade adjustment assistance (TAA). Two controversial differences with the House were: (1) the so-called Dayton-Craig amendment, which would allow the removal from an implementing bill any provisions to ...

Fast Track

Fast Track
Author: Hal S. Shapiro
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2023-09-14
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9004509445

Fast Track is the story of the rise and fall of U.S. leadership in international trade. Fast Track authority is the process Congress devised to approve trade agreements, giving Congress input into negotiations in exchange for a timely up-or-down vote. Foes derided it as a procedural gimmick, but it helped forge a bipartisan consensus on trade policy. Despite its successes, it was also fragile. The bipartisan consensus has since frayed and Fast Track has lapsed, allowing other countries to fill the void. This book discusses how Fast Track worked and offers a path for rebuilding consensus in favor of its renewal.

Implementing Bills for Trade Agreements

Implementing Bills for Trade Agreements
Author: Richard S. Beth
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 38
Release: 2016-09-05
Genre:
ISBN: 9781537500683

The Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015 (BCTPAA, title II of P.L. 114-26) renewed the "trade promotion authority" (TPA) under which implementing bills for trade agreements that address non-tariff barriers to trade (and certain levels of tariff reduction) are eligible for expedited (or "fast track") consideration by Congress under the "trade authorities procedures" established by the Trade Act of 1974 (P.L. 93-618). These expedited procedures provide for automatic introduction of the implementing bill submitted by the President, attempt to ensure that both chambers will consider and vote on it, prohibit amendment, and eliminate any need to resolve bicameral differences before sending the measure to the President. (In practice, each chamber has usually agreed to consider each implementing bill under terms that modify or override the statutory requirements, but that usually retain the prohibition on amendment.) These arrangements have been viewed as assuring negotiating partners that the United States will implement a trade agreement in the form negotiated; they also ensure that Congress will be able to conclude action within a delimited period of time. For these reasons, however, they also have often been seen as restricting Congress to approving or disapproving the terms of a trade agreement in the form negotiated by the President. The BCTPAA, however, also mitigates these restrictions in several ways. First, it establishes numerous requirements that a trade agreement must meet in order for the implementing bill to be eligible for expedited consideration. Second, the BCTPAA provides several means by which Congress can deny expedited consideration for a specific trade agreement and either decline to consider it or consider it under terms that would permit amendment and eliminate debate limits. Finally, the BCTPAA provides that any of the resolutions through which Congress can deny expedited consideration becomes available for floor consideration in either chamber only through action by the respective revenue committee.