The House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee should blaze a clearer path toward full use of Harbor Maintenance Tax (HMT) revenues in its Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2016 legislation, the American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) said in a letter to the committee. The full committee will mark up the bill on May 25. The House version of the legislation does not include the same HMT language as the Senate version, which would allow Congress to mark up the total target budget resources for then-fiscal years as equal to the lesser of: (1) 103 percent of the total budget outlay for the previous fiscal year, or (2) 100 percent of all HMT amounts collected in the previous fiscal year. The Water Resources Reform and Development Act directs 71 percent of fiscal 2016’s estimated $1.7 billion in HMT revenues to be allocated to harbor maintenance (see 1603140030). This percentage threshold of HMT prior-year revenues to be provided for then-year appropriations progressively rises to 100 percent by 2025.

Under a recently passed law, the International Trade Commission must now look at a wider range of economic indicators to determine whether unfair trade is hurting U.S. producers in antidumping and countervailing duty cases, Senate Finance Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said May 24 in testimony during an ITC final determination hearing on antidumping and countervailing duties on cold-rolled steel flat products. The Trade Preferences Extension Act of 2015 codified into law that workers and companies do not have to wait until they lose money to request and receive trade remedy relief, he said. "As you consider this case, I urge you to pay close attention to our recent clarification of the injury standard, and to ensure that our laws are strictly enforced," Wyden said. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, joined Wyden’s push for enforcement, and said the domestic flat steel products steel sector has met the statutory definition for injury in all three steel cases. “Steel imports are causing serious harm to our industry,” he said (here). “We’re seeing it in terms of import volume, those imports’ effect on prices, and their impacts on domestic producers.”

The Senate Appropriations Committee on May 19 approved a fiscal year 2017 agriculture spending bill, including some provisions that differ from its House counterpart. The Senate bill requires citrus disease inspections in Argentina, allocates $7.5 million more for import-related Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) implementation and $3.4 million more for food safety, and directs an interagency shrimp import pilot program. Senate appropriators cleared and released hard copies of the legislation immediately following full committee markup. The committee adopted two amendments proposed by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, outlining new protocols for seafood labeling (see 1605190040). The Senate and House bills now await floor consideration.

A compromise bill to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) should be posted in the House and Senate by May 21, setting up a likely May 24 House vote under expedited procedures, senators said during a May 19 press conference. Bill co-sponsor and Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., said he expects the bill will be signed into law before the Senate leaves town after May 27 for Memorial Day recess. Both the existing Senate and House bills, passed in 2015, include provisions to address concerns that a developing patchwork of state laws is causing difficulties for chemical manufacturers and importers (see 1512180021).

Lawmakers recently introduced the following trade-related bills:

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved its fiscal 2017 agriculture appropriations bill to the floor on May 19, after adopting two seafood labeling amendments offered during the full committee markup by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. One amendment would require products labeled as “golden king crab” to comprise only organisms caught in the U.S., to distinguish between Alaskan king crab, “Lithodes aequispinus,” and similar crabs caught overseas.

Legislation cleared on May 17 by the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA, and Related Agencies would modestly add to White House requests for food safety and inspection activities, GOP committee leadership said in a press release (here). Compared with the Obama Administration’s February spending request, the bill would provide $15 million more for Food Safety Modernization Act implementation, and $3 million more for food safety and inspection programs, proposing $40.2 million, and $1.033 billion, overall, for those respective programs. The $147.7 billion legislation proposes $4.78 billion in total FDA funding, including user fee revenues.

At least 11 Senate and two House lawmakers are finalizing legislation to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act, which improves upon the Senate and House versions of the bill passed in 2015, according to a statement issued by the officials (here). “We have negotiated in good faith and are extremely pleased that we have reached an agreement on key sticking points of the TSCA reform bill,” Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., and Ranking Member Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said in a joint statement on May 6 (here). “We have an incredible team that is working tirelessly, and we look forward to finalizing the deal with House negotiators.” Both bills include provisions to address concerns that a developing patchwork of state laws is causing difficulties for chemical manufacturers and importers (see 1512180021).

CBP should report the number of evasion cases, penalty notices, and “other legal or administrative actions” related to antidumping and countervailing duties on lightweight thermal paper, a bipartisan group of five senators and four House lawmakers said in a letter to CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske (here). “Importers have transshipped their products through third countries and submitted falsified import documentation including country-of-origin certificates,” the lawmakers wrote. “CBP has consulted with the domestic industry to combat these practices, which we are grateful for, but we are concerned that this problem persists and may be getting worse.” The lawmakers want CBP to describe what steps it has taken to counter such activities, and said continuation of duties ordered in 2008 on imports of lightweight thermal paper is “critical” to defending domestic industry from unfair trade practices.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., on May 18 signed HR-4923, the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act, officially sending the legislation to President Barack Obama for signature after the Senate approved the bill on May 10, his office said (here). The bill, which updates the process for compiling miscellaneous tariff bills (MTBs) and brings it into compliance with House earmark rules, received widespread praise from the likes of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, U.S. chemical associations, and U.S. manufacturers (see 1605110033). The White House didn’t comment.