‘Fast-Track’ Trade Bill Gets Support of Sen. Daschle

President Clinton won the support of a key Senate Democrat for his controversial “fast-track” trade legislation Monday, apparently ensuring passage when the bill comes to a vote this week, despite aggressive opposition by organized labor.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said he was dropping his opposition to the bill because the White House had agreed to a series of modest steps designed to address the objections of labor and environmentalists.

The developments came as the White House began a last-ditch effort to win additional support for the legislation, which is designed to provide authority for the president to begin new trade talks.

Although all presidents since Gerald R. Ford have enjoyed fast-track authority, labor and environmentalists have launched a major campaign to defeat the current bill, saying it would hurt U.S. jobs and environmental goals.

Although some Democratic senators are expected to continue opposing the measure, with Daschle’s backing, Clinton appears almost certain to win the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster and pass the bill. A procedural vote is expected today.

Strategists said the measure still faces an uncertain future in the House, where the opposition is led by Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), who is closely allied with labor.

Gephardt, who is expected to oppose Vice President Al Gore for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000, is considered unlikely to drop his opposition. He still has dozens of lawmakers following him.

Gephardt issued a statement late Monday rejecting the administration’s proposals as failing “to get at the heart of the issue.” He urged Clinton to send the fast-track bill “back to the drawing boards.”

Administration officials expressed hope that Daschle’s support--combined with a solid vote in the Senate in favor of the measure--would provide political cover for more Democrats to back it.

Even so, House GOP leaders warned that unless Clinton can muster at least 70 Democratic votes in the House, Republicans are unlikely to go out on a limb to support it.

A Republican whip count showed fewer than 100 GOP lawmakers ready to support the fast-track bill. GOP leaders said they expect to round up 50 more at most. A minimum of 218 votes is needed for House passage.

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The modest package of concessions that the administration announced Monday includes these major elements:

* Expanding the trade adjustment assistance program--which provides money to retrain U.S. workers who lose their jobs because of foreign competition--to those whose firms move their production facilities abroad.

* Intensifying efforts to get other countries to adhere to American-style environmental and workers’ rights rules, by creating special agencies in the World Bank and World Trade Organization to promote such policies.

* New proposals to pressure the WTO, the Geneva-based international organization that governs global trade, to adopt procedures that would enable it to enforce environmental rules.

* A set of new steps designed to enforce health, safety and environmental regulations along the U.S.-Mexican border, which fast-track opponents say have been ignored by the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The fast-track proposal affects only the process by which Congress considers new trade agreements that the administration may negotiate with other countries--not the substance of such accords.

The legislation obligates lawmakers to take an up-or-down vote on new trade accords quickly, without trying to rewrite individual provisions, which officials said effectively would reopen the negotiations.

Clinton administration strategists said that other U.S. trading partners have refused to enter into trade talks with the United States unless fast-track legislation is in force.