House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., announced July 11 the committee will hold a hearing on President Obama’s trade policy agenda on July 18 at 9 a.m. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman is slated to attend. In the announcement, Camp urged the administration to support maximizing American trade competitiveness with partners. The lawmaker also emphasized the need to negotiate aggressively to implement pending trade partnership, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, along with bi-lateral agreements.

Senior congressional leaders on July 9 submitted a letter to the Obama administration voicing worries ahead of this week’s U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) meeting. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sandy Levin, D-Mich., and Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, expressed concern over continued Chinese state dominated economics, trade-distorting subsidies, economic protectionism and a broader lack of market reform.

As Ecuador surfaced as a possible asylum destination for NSA leaker Edward Snowden, two U.S. Senators challenged the country’s Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) eligibility, in statements released June 27. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) (here) and U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) (here) accused Ecuador of violating preferential status terms. The press releases followed an Ecuadorian government call to sever the preferential trade relationship, manifested through the Andean Trade Preference Act .

The Senate Homeland Security Committee's Financial and Contracting Oversight Subcommittee is taking a close look at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of the Inspector General in response to a number of whistleblower allegations about misuse of agency resources. Subcommittee Chairwoman Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Ranking Member Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) requested a number of documents from Acting Inspector General Charles Edwards related to the allegations, including the sharing of confidential whistleblower material with agency officials "potentially in violation of law" and the inappropriate hiring of Edwards' wife within the office.

Sound public policy, including public-private partnerships and improved multimodal connections, will be crucial to maintaining the U.S. freight network’s efficiency and competitiveness, testifiers told members of Congress at the Panel on 21st Century Freight Transportation on June 26. Officials from various logistics and package delivery companies emphasized the value of America’s railroads in “nearly every industrial, wholesale, retail, and resource-based sector” of the U.S. economy and made recommendations to increase future potential of the overall freight network.

The Senate confirmed Penny Pritzker as Secretary of Commerce June 25. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., called Pritzker "a force of nature," in a news release following the vote. "The unanimous bipartisan support she received in the committee, and the decisive 97-1 bipartisan vote today by the full Senate, reflects our confidence that she will be a highly successful driver for growth and change," he said. The only vote in opposition was cast by Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt. Pritzker is the founder and CEO of PSP Capital Partners and a board member of the Hyatt Hotels Corp., which her father, Donald Pritzker, co-founded. Ms. Pritzker was one of President Barack Obama's top fundraising bundlers, is a former member of Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and a former member of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Pritzker replaces acting Secretary Rebecca Blank, who took over in 2012 after John Bryson took a medical leave last June following reports that he was involved in car accidents related to a seizure that he suffered.

Nine senators urged President Obama to advocate for safer working conditions in Bangladesh by suspending trade preferences, following last month’s Rana Plaza garment factory collapse, according to a press release (here). Senators including Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Ben Cardin, D-Md., said the accident that killed 1,100 workers and left hundreds of others permanently disabled was entirely “avoidable” if documented safety and workers rights violations from recent years were not left “unheeded.” “More than 1,100 lives could have been saved if the public and private sectors stepped up,” Brown said. “It’s time our government takes a strong stand and works with the Bangladesh government and the private sector to prevent future tragedies.”

Elissa Alben joined the Democratic Senate Finance Committee as international trade counsel for issues including the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the World Trade Organization, said committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) in a press release. Alben previously worked in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative as deputy assistant USTR for monitoring and enforcement.

Senate Finance Committee leaders called for action on China’s “restrictive” policies banning U.S. pork imports, and said the planned acquisition of pork producer Smithfield Foods by a Chinese company should consider the complete range of national security and food safety implications, in a June 21 letter to the U.S. Trade Representative. “China’s policies are unscientific, inconsistent, and are directly harming the United States agriculture community,” said the letter, from Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Ranking Member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, (here). China prohibits imports of pork containing any reside of ractopamine, for example, even though the scientific community regards the food additive as safe, the Senators said.

House lawmakers voted down the 2014 farm bill June 20, in a 234-195 vote. A motion to reconsider the bill, HR-1947, was made after the no vote (read the complete bill here). House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., said he was “obviously disappointed,” the bill failed, but had “no doubt that we will finish our work in the near future,” (read his statement here). Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., was harsher in her assessment: “This is totally unacceptable,” she said in a statement (here). Stabenow said Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, needs to present a bipartisan bill, and can start by bringing the Senate farm bill -- which passed 66-27 on June 10 -- to the House floor for a vote. HR-1947, includes funding for the Export Credit Guarantee, Market Access and Foreign Market Development Cooperator programs (see 13051528).