Obama was still going to get the power in the first Bill!
...”it is not giving the president more authority.”....
History has demonstrated, the only way to get a trade agreement adopted is with fast-track.
Since FDR, consistently, for 80 years, presidents in both parties have had fast-track. Anytime fast-track has lapsed, trade agreements don’t get negotiated.”
Under the Constitution, there are two ways to make binding law. Number one, you can pass a treaty ratified by 2/3ds of the Senate. Or number two, you can pass legislation passed by a majority of both of houses of Congress and signed by the president.
TPA uses the second constitutional path.” And “it’s been long recognized that the Constitution’s Origination Clause applies to trade bills, which means the House of Representatives has to be involved.
There’s a reason why trade bills have historically not been done as treaties, because the Constitution says that anything concerning the raising of revenues, and trade bills concern tariffs, which are the raising of revenues, has to originate in the House of Representatives.
So, the process of approving a trade agreement ‘through both houses of Congress’ has been the way it has been done for roughly a century..... And it is not giving the president more authority.”