President Scrambles for Votes on Trade Bill

President Clinton’s controversial “fast-track” trade bill hung by a thread Thursday despite an eleventh-hour television appeal by the president in anticipation of a climactic showdown on the House floor today.

With less than 24 hours to go before a make-or-break roll-call vote, backers said they were still at least a dozen votes short of the 218 needed, even with the deals the administration was cutting to attract votes.

An obviously anxious Clinton went on television Thursday night to call on lawmakers to approve the legislation, which would allow the president to get a quick up-or-down vote from Congress on new international trade accords. Fast-track, he said, is needed to “advance [U.S.] economic interests” and to “advance our ideals.”

“A vote against fast-track will not create a single job, clean up a single toxic waste site, advance worker rights or improve the environment,” he said, alluding to opposition by labor and environmentalists.

“But it will limit America’s ability to advance our economic interests, promote our democratic ideals, our political leadership,” he said. “I call upon the House of Representatives to vote for American leadership.”

Both Clinton and congressional Republicans said today’s House vote is certain to be close. “We think we can get there by tomorrow,” the president said in a press conference after his televised plea, “and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Earlier, Clinton cut short an appearance at the dedication of the new George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Texas to fly back to Washington and help round up support. All three of the former presidents who attended the library dedication--Republicans Bush and Gerald R. Ford and Democrat Jimmy Carter--spoke in favor of the fast-track bill.

Proponents conceded that projecting Clinton within a dozen votes of victory was optimistic, including votes that backers expect because of deals the administration was cutting with lawmakers.

Officials said the negotiations, which were continuing late into the evening, had not been completed and that any agreements are not expected to be made public until today.

The accords were expected to involve modest concessions by the White House on pet GOP issues such as school testing, foreign aid funding for abortions and the use of sampling techniques in the 2000 census.

Clinton, acknowledging the deal-cutting in his press conference, suggested that the administration was unlikely to give ground on the abortion-funding issue.

The confusion over fast-track was heightened in the Senate, which has been debating the bill all week, as Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) pushed through an amendment that would impose a four-year moratorium on new clean-air standards.

Democrats warned that Inhofe’s amendment would wreck prospects for final passage of the bill and Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) told reporters that he would seek to have the amendment removed today.

Meanwhile, the administration sent Vice President Al Gore and nearly the entire Cabinet to put pressure on fence-sitting House members. The effort appeared to yield few results.

“This is one of those situations where there are a large number of [lawmakers] who will tell you flat out [that] they know what the right thing to do is but they are under enormous political pressure,” Gore told reporters.

Clinton has said he needs the negotiating authority the legislation would provide to complete global talks now underway on trade in agriculture and services and to hammer out trade accords in Asia and Latin America.

Fast-track authority, which Congress has granted to every president since Ford, would allow lawmakers only to vote trade accords up or down, without the possibility of changing specific provisions.

Times staff writers Edwin Chen, Sam Fulwood, James Gerstenzang and Janet Hook contributed to this story.

TRADE RIFT: Trade is one issue that bedevils Clinton in his own party. A24

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Fast Facts

“Fast-track” legislation would give the president power to negotiate trade deals that Congress could not alter.

Background: This authority has been granted to every president in the last 20 years, but it has lapsed.

Pro: No president could bargain successfully in lawmakers could demand changes after a deal was sealed.

Con: The legislation would lead to the loss of jobs to nations where wages and working conditions are poor and environmental safeguards are lax.