New permitting regulations put into law in California on Sept. 30, as part of the California Environmental Quality Act (here), could further curtail the states’ oil and natural gas production, potentially forcing an increased reliance on gas imports, said a group of U.S. House members from California in an Oct. 17 letter to Governor Edmund (Jerry) Brown, D-Calif. Oil and natural gas production in the state create nearly a million jobs and more than $60 billion in labor income, said the lawmakers, citing data from the American Petroleum Institute. “California today relies on 50 percent of its oil from foreign sources,” read the letter. “This is troubling because it results in billions of dollars being sent overseas that could otherwise be invested in our state's economy to create jobs and build energy infrastructure.” House Majority Whip Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., led the letter submission.
New lobbyist registrations on trade-related issues include:
Following the end of federal government shutdown, Congress could take an easy and bipartisan step toward strengthening manufacturing by passing a Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, said Jessica Lemos, National Association of Manufacturers' director, International Trade Policy, in a blog post. The House and Senate should move quickly to approve U.S. Job Creation and Manufacturing Competitiveness Act of 2013, a House MTB that was introduced over the summer (see 13071816), she said. Numerous duty suspensions expired Dec. 31 after Congress failed to pass an MTB last year.
The House is set to vote on the H.R. 3080, the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA), on Oct. 23 or Oct. 24, a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee official said. The House Rules Committee, chaired by Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, requested the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee file a report on the legislation for consideration on Oct. 21. The bill passed unanimously by voice vote out of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and bipartisan passage is likely, according to the committee official.
Recent trade-related bills introduced in Congress include:
The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty will infringe on the U.S. ability to possess weaponry and sell arms to key allies, said two identical House (here) and Senate (here) letters submitted to President Barack Obama on Oct. 15. The letter was signed by 50 senators and 181 House members. The parameters of the treaty remain unclear, said the letter. “The treaty allows amendments by a three-quarters majority vote. As the treaty is amended, it will become a source of political and legal pressure on the U.S. to comply with amendments it was unwilling to accept,” said the lawmakers. “This would circumvent the power and duty of the Senate to provide its advice and consent on treaty commitments before they are assumed by the United States.” There are currently 113 signatories to the treaty, but only seven nations have completed ratification, the UN says (here). The Senate needs a two-thirds majority to ratify the treaty. Lawmakers in the House and Senate also expressed opposition to the treaty in the months and days leading up to its signing (see 13092610).
The Obama Administration should ensure Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks foster a business climate where foreign automakers, primarily the Japanese, continue to invest in U.S. auto manufacturing, said a bipartisan group of 78 House lawmakers in an Oct. 15 letter to the president. That foreign investment has honed the skills of the U.S. workforce and produced thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs, said the lawmakers.
Recent trade-related bills introduced in Congress include:
The ongoing government shutdown has forced Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to furlough at least 95 percent of its staff, including all port inspectors, bringing the total employees to less than 25 and depriving the agency of all capacity to screen imported products, said a report (here) prepared for an Oct. 11 Senate Committee on Science, Commerce and Transportation hearing . The hearing focused on broad impacts of the government shutdown. The CPSC is no longer able to publish reports of consumer damages and threats via www.saferproducts.gov, a website that receives roughly 100,000 visits and publishes over 1,000 reports each month, according to the report compiled by the majority staff under Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.
The drive to push Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) legislation in Congress may help usher in pending trade pacts, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and ultimately benefit U.S. consumers, Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told a National Foreign Trade Council event on Oct. 9. “Our economy is quite different from that of the economy of 2002, when TPA was last written, and there are new opportunities and challenges related to international trade and investment that I think will be huge winners for American workers and American families,” said Wyden. The Senator also echoed calls by an Oct. 8 George Washington University panel to include rules on the digital economy in future free trade agreements (see 13100811). “Right now, the trade rules don’t neatly apply to the digital economy. They don’t apply despite the fact that there is a growing number of protectionist practices that we’re facing with overseas and barriers popping up.”