House Democrats on Trade Committee Ask for NAFTA Hearings

All of the Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, except ranking member Richard Neal of Massachusetts, signed a Feb. 22 letter asking the chairman of the Trade Subcommittee to hold a hearing on NAFTA. The group says a hearing is necessary so that Congress can provide appropriate oversight of the U.S. trade representative's negotiations for a revised NAFTA. "More than 25 years ago, this Committee held the administrations negotiating the original NAFTA to a high standard of accountability, requiring United States Trade Representatives, Secretaries of Labor, and Administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency to appear before it multiple times," the lawmakers said. "American workers, businesses, and other stakeholders of today deserve as much accountability, if not more, from their negotiators and from their representatives."

Trade Subcommittee ranking member Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., said in the letter that he had asked for this privately in October. He also said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, held a field hearing on NAFTA in November, where USTR General Counsel Stephen Vaughn testified. "And yet, to date, neither the Ways and Means Committee as a whole nor the Trade Subcommittee has held a NAFTA hearing with an Administration witness," Pascrell wrote. Trade Subcommittee Chairman Dave Reichert, R-Wash., did not immediately respond to a request for comment.