Senator urges Bush send Congress Colombia pact

By Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House may have to force lawmakers to make up their minds on a free trade agreement with Colombia by submitting it to Congress for a vote, a senior Republican said on Tuesday.

"I hope he does send it up because I think we'll need to ask people to fish or cut bait," Sen. Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, told the Reuters Regulation Summit.

The White House still hopes to persuade Democratic leaders in Congress to voluntarily schedule a vote on the pact, instead of forcing a confrontation on the issue.

However, after President George W. Bush made a high-profile appeal last week in his final State of the Union speech for the agreement, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said there were no plans to take up the pact.

Democrats have demanded more evidence Colombia is serious about stopping murders of trade unionists. They also have concerns about the lingering influence of former paramilitary commanders who committed massacres and smuggled cocaine in the name of countering Marxist guerrillas.

The Bush administration says a sharp drop in homicides, kidnappings and "terrorist" acts since 2002 shows how much progress Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has already made.

It argues approving the agreement would reinforce those gains, while rejecting it would send a dangerous signal about the United States' commitment to Latin America.

The White House could submit the agreement to Congress for a straight up-or-down vote under the "trade promotion authority" legislation it used to negotiate the pact.  Continued...