Jeff Bingaman United States Senator from New Mexico

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall today wrote to President Obama to convey their support for his decision to insist on having a deal in hand to extend Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) before going forward with the pending trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama.

In a letter to the President, Bingaman and Udall joined 40 other Senate colleagues to express their support for the TAA provisions that were enacted in 2009 and said they look forward to helping secure bipartisan support to extend that version of the program. The 2009 legislation made significant improvements to TAA, such as broadening eligibility to include workers in service industries, as well as workers who lose their jobs to countries such as China that have not signed free trade agreements with the United States. This version of TAA increases the Health Coverage Tax Credit (HCTC) that helps beneficiaries pay for private health insurance.

Since 2009, nearly 2,500 New Mexicans have relied on TAA benefits; more than 60 percent of them were covered under the eligibility provisions that have since expired.

For months, the minority party in the Senate has opposed extending TAA until the administration provided a path forward for the free trade agreement with Colombia.

"TAA has been a core pillar of U.S. trade policy. The program ensures that workers who lose their jobs and financial security as a result of globalization have an opportunity to transition to new jobs and emerging sectors of the economy. Important reforms were made to TAA in 2009, which have helped streamline the program and make it more efficient for beneficiaries. In 2009, Congress also expanded eligibility to all workers whose jobs have been moved offshore, regardless of whether the United States has a trade agreement with the particular country. It also recognized the important role of the service industry in the U.S. economy by bringing service workers into TAA.

"The program also improved and expanded access to TAA's Health Coverage Tax Credit (HCTC) – an initiative that promotes private health insurance access for recipients, and makes health insurance coverage more affordable to workers who lose their jobs due to trade and offshoring.  In the absence of this program, more Americans would need public assistance and more individuals nearing retirement would be forced to use the emergency room as their sole source of health care," the letter states.

"These bipartisan reforms to the TAA program help hundreds of thousands of workers, in every state, by moving workers more quickly from government support to private sector jobs. Since new TAA began in May 2009, the program has assisted 185,000 Americans who may have otherwise been ineligible for services, with usage in some states increasing by more than 40 percent. Unfortunately, these critical TAA reforms expired on February 12, 2011.

"We share the goal of your National Export Initiative to double U.S. exports and are looking forward to working with you on implementing a strong trade and competitiveness strategy. We recognize, as you do, that such a deal will be challenging to secure because it requires significant bipartisan commitments in both chambers of Congress to vote in favor of a TAA extension. The challenge is worth it. We agree with you that strengthening the safety net for the middle class by extending TAA should be a prerequisite for the consideration of new trade agreements," the letter continues.