USMCA Moves Out of Two Senate Committees; Senate Floor Vote Expected This Week
The Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee sent the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement out of committee on a 16-4 vote, and the Budget Committee moved the implementing bill with a voice vote, though several senators voted no there, as well.
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The implementing bill must clear four more committees before a floor vote can be held, and those votes are scheduled for Jan. 15. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said his chamber will move the implementing bill this week. The fact that the USMCA doesn't touch on climate change was the most common reason that senators voted no, including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. Whitehouse, explaining his no vote, said in the Environmental Committee Jan. 14 that “there’s no doubt in my mind that this bill easily wins the record of ‘most improved,'" compared with the environmental chapter in NAFTA. He added: “But it wins the most improved off a baseline of terrible, horrible and no good.”