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Pelosi is really turning up the stupid rhetoric.
"I absolutely refuse to have the Democratic Party be viewed ... as an
anti-trade party ... The Peru free trade agreement rises to the level
of acceptance," she said.
National Journal's CongressDailyAM
Issue date: Thursday, November 8, 2007
TRADE
Peru Pact Debate Quickly Exposes Division Among Dems
The House began debate Wednesday on the
U.S.-Peru free trade agreement, with the Democratic majority quickly
dividing into two camps.
On one hand were those who see a new era where
trade can advance while protecting workers rights and the environment,
and on the other were those who see only disappointment.
House Majority Leader Hoyer delayed the final vote until today. (read more).
Opponents like Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill., argued that President Bush
cannot be trusted to enforce new stronger labor and environmental
provisions, and noted that Bush has vowed to veto House-passed
assistance for workers harmed by globalization.
"I'm reminding people that the enforcer of this happens to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," he said.
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Sander Levin,
D-Mich., said the Peru agreement was a clear break from past trade
policies.
"This is the antithesis of CAFTA," he said,
referring to the contentious Central America Free Trade Agreement.
Much of the lobbying by Democratic factions focused on freshmen.
Speaker Pelosi pressed freshman Democrats at a morning meeting to back
the measure, Democratic sources said.
"There will be a lot of losses [among freshman Democrats], but it
is going to end up being one of the strongest Dem votes that we have
taken on major trade legislation for a while," said one Democratic aide
with knowledge of the situation prior to the vote.
But several freshman members who oppose the agreement said that
they were not pressured to change positions once they made their
intentions known.
Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., told
CongressDaily that once he said he would not back it, leadership left
him alone.
Ellison has argued that nongovernmental entities should be able to
monitor the environmental and labor protections that were added to the
deal.
"I give [Ways and Means Chairman] Charlie Rangel and [Senate
Finance Chairman] Baucus credit for putting in the environmental and
labor protections, but at the end of the day is it a question of
whether it will be enforced," Ellison said.
On the House floor Wednesday evening, Pelosi said if Democrats
voted against the U.S.-Peru trade deal, it was doubtful they would
support any trade deal ever.
"I absolutely refuse to have the Democratic Party be viewed ... as
an anti-trade party ... The Peru free trade agreement rises to the
level of acceptance," she said.
Administration officials, who have been prodding lawmakers for
months to advance the Peru trade deal as well as three other bilateral
deals, were largely invisible Wednesday.
Some Democratic proponents of Peru downplayed the role of
administration officials in helping craft the bipartisan deal on labor
and the environment that underpins the agreement.
"They did not do this willingly. We pushed them to do this, and we
will push them to enforce this," said Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa., who
also helped round up Democratic votes.
A spokeswoman for Trade Representative Schwab noted that meetings
with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Union Trade
Commissioner Peter Mandelson kept Schwab away from Capitol Hill for
most of the day, although she continued to work the phones, the aide
said. By Martin Vaughan and Christian Bourge
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