A bill that would require advance data from all international mail by 2020 -- designed to help CBP interdict small-scale fentanyl and carfentanil shipments, particularly from China -- is headed to a conference committee after the Senate gave its approval Sept. 17. The House passed the STOP Act in June, also with strong bipartisan support (see 1806140037).
A bipartisan group of a dozen senators have asked the secretary of commerce and the U.S. trade representative to open negotiations with Canada with an eye to renewing a softwood lumber agreement similar to the one in place between 2006 and 2015. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., led the letter, which they released publicly on Sept. 12. The old agreement protected domestic producers through quotas, but had escape valves tied to the market price. The senators noted that with antidumping and countervailing duties on Canadian imports (see 1801020034), it has become more expensive to build houses or make window frames.
The formal notification of a NAFTA deal may not comply with the Trade Promotion Authority law, according to Washington state Democrat Rep. Suzan DelBene, who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, and six of her colleagues. "While we appreciate that it takes time to iron out the final details and text, we believe that it is not in the spirit of TPA to send Congress an official notification letter until all three parties have formally agreed to move forward together with an updated trilateral agreement," they wrote to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer Sept. 10.
House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., is circulating a letter among lawmakers to be sent to the secretaries of the departments of Commerce, State and Homeland Security that calls for tougher enforcement on forced labor involved in the seafood supply chain. "We urge your Departments to ensure that the United States does not import any seafood associated with human trafficking, from Thailand or any other country," the letter says. Grijalva is seeking other lawmakers to sign onto the letter by Sept. 12.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is extending until Sept. 25 the deadline for public comments on the Section 232 investigation into the national security effects of uranium imports (see 1807180029), BIS said in a notice. Comments had originally been due Sept. 10. The agency seeks input on the health of the domestic uranium industry, quantities of uranium imports and industry growth needed to meet national security requirements.
It's uncertain how long it would take the International Trade Commission to report on the economic impact of an updated NAFTA, as required under Trade Promotion Authority, ITC Chairman David Johanson said during an Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Sept. 6. Commerce Subcommittee Chairman Jerry Moran, R-Kan., asked Johanson if the ITC's evaluation could be started before a deal signing and inquired on how long it might take. Johanson said he could not say how long it would take, but acknowledged they cannot even start without the text, and they do not have the text yet for the U.S.-Mexico agreement that was announced in late August. The ITC has 105 days from signing to finish, and if it took that long, a vote would likely come no sooner than the middle of next year, because Congress also has 45 session days to write the implementing legislation.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative should reconsider negotiating a free-trade agreement with the Philippines, six House Democrats said in a Sept. 4 letter. The group, led by House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee ranking member Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., wrote in response to testimony USTR Robert Lighthizer gave in the Senate in July, in which he said that the Philippines would be a good place to start for a new trade agreement. "Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s rule has so far been marked by shocking human rights abuses" and child labor "remains a persistent and serious problem in the country," the group wrote.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called on the Commerce Department Inspector General to investigate the process for receiving company-specific requests for exclusions from Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum. “Commerce officials claimed that the exemption process would be 'fair and transparent,'" her office said in an Aug. 29 press release. “But an investigation by Senator Warren and additional public reporting have revealed the process is replete with mistakes and appears arbitrary, opaque and subject to political favoritism,” she said, citing an exclusion granted to a sanctioned Russian aluminum company. Among other things, Warren asked in her letter that the IG examine the "processes and procedures in place for Commerce officials to make" decisions on tariff exemptions.
The Port Operations, Research and Technology Act, a bill from Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., will be given a mark-up in the Senate Commerce Committee Aug. 1. The bill would give federal money to ports that want to improve marine terminal equipment, highway or rail infrastructure, intermodal facilities, or install digital infrastructure systems, freight intelligent transportation systems, or dredge berthing areas. All but the last category would be eligible for grants covering 80 percent of the costs; dredging projects would be eligible for a 50 percent match. The bill language does not describe how much money might be available next year for the grant pool.
If U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer intends to close a deal with Mexico and not Canada, he cannot get congressional approval for such a treaty without full consultation and explanation first, according to a letter sent to him by four Democrats on July 30. According to Lighthizer's testimony last week, he still intends to pursue a trilateral NAFTA, but to get the Mexico-U.S. side done first in order to bring pressure on Canada to compromise. The letter says a bilateral deal would be a "fundamentally different agreement" and "would present different economic opportunities on a different scale and require different trade-offs." The letter was led by Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., and included Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., former Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin, D-Mich., and Rep. Brian Higgins, D-N.Y.