After four days of debate, the Senate on September 22 approved a bill renewing the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) programs, which now goes to the House. The final vote was 70-27; the vote on the TAA portion was 69-28. The wide bipartisan margin by which the bill was approved is widely seen as removing the most difficult remaining obstacle to approval of the pending trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama.
Majority Leader Reid thanked Senate Republicans for the strong bipartisan vote. Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said: "The time has come to send the three pending free trade agreements to Congress... Both parties in the Senate have acted in good faith to move this process forward... I kept my promise that I would allow TAA to move forward in the Senate as long as Republicans had a chance to amend it. It is time for the administration to deliver on theirs. It's time for the President to send up these long-pending FTAs without delay."
House Speaker John Boehner also issued a statement: "The bill that passed the Senate today is the result of months of hard work by Chairman Camp and Chairman Baucus. We await the President's submission of the three trade agreements sitting on his desk so the House can consider them in tandem with the Senate-passed GSP/TAA legislation. If the President submits these agreements promptly, I'm confident that all four bills can be signed into law by mid-October." Some see the October 12-14 State Visit of Korean President Lee Myung-bak as an action-forcing event for passage of the FTAs and GSP/TAA, at least in the House.
The Chamber applauded the Senate's approval of GSP and TAA in a press statement. The Chamber issued a Key Vote letter on Monday in favor of GSP and TAA and met with many senators in the course of the week to urge their support.
