By Doug Palmer
WASHINGTON, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Republicans will make an early push to win new "fast track" trade negotiating authority for President-elect George W. Bush, despite suggestions from two top trade negotiators that it may no longer be necessary, a key U.S. lawmaker said on Tuesday.
"I would hope that we might get fast track renewed," Phil Crane, an Illinois Republican who chairs the House (of Representative's) Ways and Means subcommittee on trade, told reporters. Republicans will make a push for the legislation in the first half of next year, he said.
Just a few minutes earlier, outgoing U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky repeated her view that fast track may be an outdated concept.
She urged the incoming Bush administration to think carefully before deciding to pursue fast track "because it's going to take a lot of political capital to get."
Under fast track, Congress gives up its right to amend future trade agreements negotiated by the president and instead agrees to vote only to accept or reject the overall pacts.
The issue became a political hot potato during the Clinton administration, due in large part to concerns about trade agreements raised by labor and environmental groups.
Most trade experts argue fast track is needed to conclude major multilateral trade pacts, such as the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement and even broader negotiations under the World Trade Organization.
But after previous fast track authority expired during President Bill Clinton's first term, efforts to renew the legislation have been stymied by partisan differences.
Republicans generally believe labor and environmental provisions do not belong in trade agreements and have resisted Democratic efforts to incorporate them into fast track.
In her remarks to Economic Strategy Institute, Barshefsky said the "abstract" nature of fast track also made it difficult to win approval.
Lawmakers are more likely to approve "concrete" agreements with tangible benefits, like a historic trade deal negotiated with China this year, she said.
On Monday, Barshefsky got some support for her position from an unusual source -- EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy.
In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, Lamy said congressional approval of fast track might not be as important as it was in the past to a send clear signal to the rest of the world that "things are going to move forward" on trade.
"My personal view is that there are other ways of sending a signal than just voting fast track -- for instance, a clear and articulate policy line from the new president and the new administration," Lamy said.
Lamy complained the United States had not spoken with a single voice on trade in recent years because of Congress' tendency to pass laws that conflict with administration goals.
Bush, who has promised to push for fast track, may be able send just as strong a signal to rest of the world by clearly laying out U.S. trade priorities, he said.:
