Senators Orrin Hatch and Ron Wyden have introduced a Senate bill calling for “fast track” Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) along with House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan.  A smoldering debate over trade is expected to get even hotter now that Congress has returned from its two-week spring break.  Months of closed-door negotiations continue.…

Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican, has written a letter to President Barack Obama regarding the request that Congress “fast-track” legislation on Trade Promotion Authority. Sessions says he has a number of questions Congress should expect answers to before the body agrees to “yield its institutional powers.” Read the full letter below: [Reposted from The…

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Wednesday (May 6) morning kicked off the process for Senate floor consideration of a Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) bill by making a motion to proceed to the legislation, although the Senate is still debating an Iran nuclear bill and is not slated to finish that until Thursday at…

Experts say that a chronic gap between imports and exports could impede a generally improving economy. [Reposted from The New York Times  |  Patricia Cohen  |  May 5, 2015] A roof-raising trade gap in March highlighted concerns that the rise of the dollar against other currencies was weakening the economy, chipping away at the ability…

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) threatened Monday (May 4) to block consideration of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) legislation unless Senate Republicans first move on two Democratic priorities: the renewal of the highway trust fund and a bill to reform to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which authorizes data collection and eavesdropping programs for…

  U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack has formally told Congress that it may need to repeal the country-of-origin labeling (COOL) law for meat or else change the statute to allow for a “generic label” if the United States loses a final appeal at the World Trade Organization later this month.   Vilsack…

  Senate Republicans and business groups are criticizing an amendment on human trafficking added to the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) bill in last week’s Finance Committee markup as hampering the ability of the fast-track bill to function as intended, and are trying to find ways to get it out of the legislation.   Senate Finance…

Please join CPA and protect Country Of Origin Labeling.  The United States Congress passed a law 10 years ago that requires meat, seafood and produce to be clearly labeled as to their country of origin.  They called it Country of Origin Labeling, or COOL. But other governments and global meatpackers are challenging our COOL law. …

Will Hillary Clinton oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and the fast track authority designed to ramrod it through the Congress? She’s been noncommittal to date, with many assuming she will eventually support the president who she served as secretary of state. But by calling out his opponents, President Obama has turned the escalating battle…

House Republican opposition to sweeping trade legislation isn’t breaking down along traditional Tea Party-GOP establishment fault lines. [Reposted from The Hill  |  Scott Wong and Vicki Needham  |  May 3, 3015] But the pockets of GOP defections will give President Obama and Republican leaders little wiggle room to muscle a bill through the lower chamber.…