Ron Wyden close to deal on 'fast-track' trade legislation [View all]

[ND-Dem]

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is near to reaching a deal with Republicans on a "fast-track" trade bill regarded as crucial to later producing congressional agreement on a sweeping Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact with 12 Pacific Rim nations.

"We are close to finding common ground," Wyden said Thursday morning in a Senate Finance Committee hearing as the panel's chairman, Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah, also delivered an upbeat assessment of his long negotiations with the Oregon Democrat. Wyden indicated there could be a deal as early as Thursday afternoon.

Wyden, who has generally been a supporter of free-trade pacts, has been heavily lobbied by President Barack Obama and congressional Republican leaders to lend his support to the fast-track bill, formally known as Trade Promotion Authority.

At the same time, critics of the trade proposals have been urging Wyden to reject the agreement and warn that he could face political consequences in his 2016 re-election campaign if he supports either fast track or the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

One group towed a 30-foot blimp around to Wyden's town halls in Oregon attacking the partnership, and free-trade critics have also picketed his home in Portland as well as his wife's town house in New York City. One liberal group, Democracy for America, has been trying to drum up primary opposition to Wyden, who has generally been regarded as politically secure in Oregon.

http://www.oregonlive.com/mapes/index.ssf/2015/04/ron_wyden_close_to_deal_on_fas.html

The "liberal Democrat" Wyden.

Liberal & Democrat no longer have anything to do with labor, apparently.