Senate Clears Way for Talks With Mexico on Trade Pact : Commerce: It follows the House in voting to prohibit amendments to any agreement the U.S. negotiates. The discussions may start almost immediately.

The Senate voted Friday to give the Bush Administration the leeway it requested to begin negotiations on a proposed free-trade agreement with Mexico, clearing the way for the talks to start almost immediately.

By a vote of 59 to 36, the senators defeated a measure that would have denied negotiating authority to the President. On Thursday, the House approved the same legislation 231 to 192.

The so-called fast-track legislation guarantees that once the Administration negotiates the trade agreement, Congress will consider it on a straight yes-or-no vote, rather than trying to amend specific provisions, which Bush has said would virtually end hopes of an accord.

On vacation at his home in Kennebunkport, Me., Bush hailed the Senate action as a major step forward. “Its passage provides some of the best economic news in months,” he said. “Everybody wins.”

Administration officials had insisted that it was crucial to have this authority before talks could proceed. Otherwise, they said, this country’s trading partners would have no confidence in its negotiators.

However, opponents--who contend that the agreement could cost U.S. jobs and damage the environment--vowed to continue fighting to give Congress a chance to shape the final agreement.

“The need is for us to go out and educate the country and build the strength of our coalition,” Sen. Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.) said. Riegle is sponsoring a measure that would allow the Senate to amend the ultimate agreement in the most controversial areas.

However, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.), the powerful chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate’s most formidable backer of the free-trade talks, dismissed the prospect that Riegle’s proposal would pass. “I just don’t think that’s going to happen,” Bentsen said.

With its vote Friday, the Senate provided a two-year extension of fast-track authority to all trade agreements now being forged.

There are now two sets of negotiations in progress: the upcoming talks with Mexico, which also include Canada and aim to make North America a free-trade zone, and the “Uruguay Round” of talks in which 107 nations are seeking to lower trade barriers globally.

The controversy, however, centered largely on the implications of freeing trade with Mexico, a country whose workers earn a fraction of U.S. wages and one where environmental and other regulations have been laxly enforced.

Opponents warned that the agreement would amount to an invitation to U.S. industry to go south, leaving unemployed U.S. workers behind. “We will see another form of Montezuma’s revenge,” Sen. Howell Heflin (D-Ala.) contended.

But supporters said that with exports providing the bulk of this country’s economic growth, free trade will be a boon. Moreover, they insisted that without an agreement linking its economy with those of its neighbors, the United States will be at a disadvantage against the trading blocs forming in Europe and Asia.

“If we fail to move forward with a North American free-trade agreement, we will be left on the bench in the world trading game,” Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said.

Further, the United States already has lower tariffs and quotas than virtually all its trading partners, including Mexico, said Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Finance Committee’s trade subcommittee. “We have much more to gain than we have to lose” if more countries move to reduce barriers.

As it did in the House, the Senate vote broke down largely along regional lines. Much of the opposition came from those who represent the heavily unionized Midwest and Northeast, as well as the textile- and grain-producing states that fear that the Uruguay Round might require a reduction in the subsidies that give them an advantage against foreign competition.

California’s Republican senator, John F. Seymour, voted in favor of extending the fast-track authority. Democrat Alan Cranston also supports the talks, but he did not vote. He asked that his vote be used to offset that of Sen. Wyche Fowler Jr. (D-Ga.), who was absent but would have voted against the fast-track authority. Such procedures are standard under Senate rules.