Teamsters join other foes of fast-tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty in presenting

a petition to Sen. Ron Wyden, who is a key backer of TPP.

Teamsters join other foes of fast-tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty in presenting

a petition to Sen. Ron Wyden, who is a key backer of TPP.

As expected, the House of Representatives again passed fast-track trade legislation known formally as Trade Promotion Authority Thursday morning. The vote was 218-208. Twenty-eight Democrats voted for it, the same as last Friday. Fifty Republicans voted against it compared with 54 the first time. Unlike its passage last week, this time the bill was not tied to another bill called Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) meant to provide aid to workers displaced by trade agreements.

TPA is meant to expedite trade negotiations by the executive branch. Under that arrangement, Congress gets to review any completed trade agreements and can vote to approve or reject them, but cannot add amendments to or filibuster them.

The TPA bill will now be sent to the Senate where a vote is expected next week but not yet scheduled.

The Senate passed TPA a month ago with 14 Democrats in favor. It will be up to the grassroots opposition to fast-tracking to peel away as many of those Democrats as possible. There is no doubt that this will be very tough.

For at least some of those Democrats, the key is what happens to TAA. That bill and TPA were tied together last time to ensure that fast-tracking could not reach the president's desk without the assistance for workers also doing so. Now that TPA and TAA are decoupled, it's a matter of trust. That is, can Republicans in both the Senate and House be counted on to pass TAA as an amendment to a preferences bill having to do with trade with Africa.

At least some Democrats are not trusting of this matter and fear that they might pass TPA and then see TAA fail. President Obama has said he will not sign TPA unless he can also sign TAA.

Foes of TPA, inside and outside Congress have their work cut out for them.