Amendment to Restore Funding for the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program

May. 18, 2015 | S.Amdt. 1242 to H.R. 1314

This amendment by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) would have raised the annual funding for the Trade Adjustment Assistance program from the inadequate $400 million per year to a more robust $575 million per year. Although the AFL-CIO strongly supports renewal of Trade Adjustment Assistance, a vital program to help retrain workers who lost jobs to trade, the 'Trade Adjustment Assistance Enhancement Act of 2015' falls short in many areas. It fails to include a minimum of $575 million in annual funding, as the Administration has previously requested for the program and as sought in S. 568 and in the earlier Baucus-Collins proposal from 2013; it excludes public sector workers from coverage; and it fails to include the Health Coverage Tax Credit. The amendment failed.