Associated Press / Tom Raum, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House Ways and Means Committee chairman urged President Clinton on Monday to give a televised address to the nation laying out his case for extending permanent trade privileges to China.
"I can't think of a better time for you to use the power of your office to directly communicate with the American people on the benefits of this historic trade agreement," Rep. Bill Archer, R-Texas, said.
Archer is a leading congressional sponsor of the legislation. A House vote is set for late May.
The bill, which would end annual congressional review of China's trade status and ease China's entry into the Geneva-based World Trade Organization, is fiercely opposed by labor unions and environmental and some human rights groups.
One major environmental group, the Sierra Club, announced its opposition to the legislation Monday and said it would join with the AFL-CIO in a grassroots lobbying effort in the home districts of key lawmakers.
"The United States must retain the leverage afforded by annual review of our commercial relationship with China in order to ensure fair trade, clean trade and green trade," said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club.
Meanwhile, the Clinton administration released a letter signed by nine former Treasury secretaries in support of permanent trade relations with China.
"As China opens its door to American exports, American workers and the U.S. economy will benefit substantially," the former treasury secretaries including Robert Rubin and Nicholas Brady said in the letter.
Archer is among several supporters of the legislation to suggest Clinton talk to the nation on television. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance subcommittee on international trade, suggested last week that Clinton appear before a joint session House and Senate to sell the idea.
White House aides said they are considering a prime-time televised forum for the president to argue for the China trade package but have not settled on details.
Archer, whose Ways and Means Committee has jurisdiction over trade, also urged Clinton "to resist growing pressures" to attach conditions to the legislation.
"I am concerned that each passing day brings with it more pressure to link permanent trade relations for China with nontrade side agreements in an effort to win more support," Archer said in a letter to Clinton. "This is the wrong way to go."
The administration has appealed to Congress not to attach human-rights, labor or environmental conditions to the trade bill.
At the same time, administration economic officials have held private discussions with key Democrats, including Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., and Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., on possible side language, said both congressional and administration aides.
Levin, senior Democrat on the Ways and Means trade subcommittee, has proposed a special commission be set up jointly by Congress and the executive branch to investigate Chinese human rights abuses and security issues.
Gephardt is may propose a similar measure to keep congressional leverage on China but has yet to come up with specifics.
The bill is scheduled for a House vote the week of May 22.
No vote has been scheduled in the Senate, but it has wide bipartisan support in that chamber. A majority of House Democrats are believed to oppose the legislation.
The measure would extend to China the same low-tariff access to U.S. markets that nearly all other U.S. trading partners have. China already has this access, but it must be renewed annually.:
