Fast track legislation is moving forward. Retiring Senator Max Baucus(D-MT) and Republican leaders introduced a bill to give trade promotion negotiating authority (a.k.a. “fast track” authority) to complete the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership and a trade and investment deal (the TTIP) with the European Union. The sponsors were unable to obtain a Democratic co-sponsor in the House, and House Ways and Means Ranking Member Sander Levin introduced a strong statement calling for a better model for negotiating trade agreements.

Fast Track is a terrible idea because it’s a proven job killer. It gives the president the right to send treaty implementing legislation to Congress for a vote without any opportunity to amend or improve it. Setting enforceable job creation goals or creating effective mechanisms to deal with currency manipulation, for example, will be impossible if the legislation is fast-tracked.

NAFTA, which was fast-tracked in 1993, and which was the prototype for more than a dozen U.S. trade and investment deals negotiated over the past decade, resulted in growing trade deficits with Mexico that eliminated nearly 700,000 U.S. jobs by 2010. More recently, President Obama pushed through a new trade deal between Korea and the United States (the KORUS deal), which resulted in the loss of 40,000 jobs in the first year alone.

Fast track legislation in its current form is opposed by more than 170 Republican and Democratic House members, so this legislation might be dead on arrival. The House Republican leadership is reportedly insisting that at least 50 Democrats co-sponsor the legislation, including at least one House Democratic leader, before it will be allowed to come to a vote on the House floor. With luck, the fast track bill will die in the House. The last thing America needs is renewal of fast track and more trade and investment deals rushed through Congress.