The bill passed by Congress New Year's day to avert the fiscal cliff included a nine-month extension to the "authorities provided by each provision of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008," also known as the "Farm Bill." President Obama signed the bill Jan. 2.
The Senate passed the FY13 National Defense Authorization Act Dec. 21, which, as expected, includes a provision that would reduce export restrictions on some satellites and their components. The bill will next go to the President for his signature. The NDAA conference report was approved 81-14 is (here). The provision is based on the Safeguarding United States Satellite Leadership and Security Act, S-3211, introduced by Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.)
New lobbyist registrations on trade issues include:
U.S. tomato growers are suffering from an outdated 1996 trade agreement with Mexico that prevents them from challenging the dumping of foreign tomatoes on the U.S. market, said a letter to the Commerce Department signed by 15 members of Congress, including Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Me. “All our tomato growers want is a level playing field to compete on, and ending this agreement is a way to get there,” said Michaud (here).
The Senate agreed to include a provision granting presidential authority over satellite export controls in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, according to a press release by House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Howard Berman (D-Calif.). The amendment, agreed to in conference, would allow the transfer of satellites and related items from the State Department’s U.S. Munitions List to the Bureau of Industry and Security’s Commerce Control List, Berman said. It would also prohibit the export of such items to China, North, Syria and Iran, he said.
House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) is now free of cancer following chemotherapy treatments for non-Hodgkins large B-cell lymphoma, his office said in a press release.
Sen. Robert Portman (R-Ohio) continued to push back against the miscellaneous tariff bill (MTB) process, urging lawmakers to approve legislation that would have the International Trade Commission lead the process rather than Congress. Portman wrote about the issue Dec. 14 in his weekly column on his Website. The MTB, typically passed by every congress to suspend tariffs on certain products, has faced recent objections over whether MTB violates a congressional ban on earmarks.
Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), will join the Senate Finance Committee in the next congress, said Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) in a press release. Brown and Bennet will replace outgoing Senators Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), both retiring this year.
New lobbyist registrations on trade issues include:
Ten senators, led by Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), urged the Commerce Department to crack down on evasion and circumvention of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on oil country tubular goods (OCTG) from China. In a letter dated Dec. 10, the senators said the AD/CV orders have been undermined by a variety of schemes designed to weaken them. “These efforts include outright evasion and circumvention of the orders as well as less obvious but equally harmful attempts to narrow their scope,” the letter said. “If successful, these ploys will enable Chinese companies to dump massive quantities of subsidized Chinese OCTG into the United States without paying the AD and CVD duties that they rightfully owe.”