Chairman Ryan's counterpart in the Senate is Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), the new Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.  They agree on the importance of Trade Promotion Authority. In thanking his colleagues in the Senate Republican Conference for choosing him as the Finance Committee's new chairman, Senator Hatch said, "The renewal of bipartisan, job-creating Trade Promotion Authority will jumpstart a strong trade agenda that can help put America back to work."

This is not to say that passing any trade bill-TPA, TPP, or anything else-will  be easy.  Quite the opposite.   The large group of TPA opponents who gathered for an event last week under the leadership of Representative Rosa DeLauro (D) from Connecticut made that clear.  There were several members of Congress at the January 8 event in the Capitol and numerous interest groups from Network, the Catholic social justice lobby, to the Sierra Club.  And the first speaker after Representative DeLauro was the president of the AFL-CIO Richard Trumka. No one could have misread his message. "The AFL-CIO doesn't just oppose fast-track," he said.   "We're going to fight actively to kill it.  And we're going to win that fight."

One such question has to do with the essential nature of Trade Promotion Authority or Fast Track. Is it an expression of Congressional authority?  Or is it the opposite, the derelict ceding of Congressional prerogatives to the Executive Branch?  Chairman Ryan sees it in the former light.  As he put it, "TPA would empower Congress."  Representative DeLauro takes the opposite view.  "All we get is an up or down vote," she said, and that is not enough.

With respect to the philosophical question, our view is more in line with Chairman Ryan's.  The real issue, though, is how such questions of philosophy or principle-pick your descriptor-will play out against a real TPA bill in the 114th Congress and a revealed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.  To date we have seen neither.  We are told we shall see both before this year gets much older.  Let us hope so.  

The Chairman's Statement is a link to the text of Chairman Ryan's opening statement in today's Ways and Means Committee hearing.

Senator Hatch Accepts takes you to the Senator's remarks to his colleagues after the Republican Conference had ratified his appointment as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

A Trade Rally is a link to the C-Span recording of the January 8 event, led by Representative Rosa DeLauro and in opposition to Trade Promotion Authority.