President Signs into Law One Year Extension of GSP and ATPA
On December 28, 2009, the President signed into law H.R. 4284, a bill which extends the Generalized System of Preferences and Trade Preference Act/Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPA/ATPDEA) one year beyond the date these programs were scheduled to expire.
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(H.R. 4284 was passed by the House on December 14, 2009 and by the Senate on December 22, 2009.)
GSP and ATPA/ATPDEA Are Extended for One Year, Without Change
H.R. 4284 extends GSP and ATPA/ATPDEA, without change, through December 31, 2010.
For ATPA/ATPDEA, the extension applies to Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, the ATPDEA regional fabric tariff preference level (TPL), and the ATPDEA brassiere provision. H.R. 4284 also extends through December 31, 2010 authority for the President to take certain bilateral emergency tariff actions with respect to ATPDEA apparel. In addition, H.R. 4284 moves up the deadline for a report on ATPA/ATPDEA, including compliance with eligibility criteria, to June 30, 2010 (from April 30, 2011).
(H.R. 4284 funds the GSP and ATPA/ATPDEA extensions by extending the merchandise processing fee (MPF) and certain other Customs user fees for 3-4 months. H.R. 4284 also makes certain revisions to provisions on corporate estimated taxes in Section 202(b) of the Corporate Estimated Tax Shift Act of 2009.)
House and Senate to Work on Preference Program Reform in 2010
The leadership of both the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee have stated that they want to undertake a comprehensive review of all aspects of preference programs and introduce reform legislation in 2010.
(GSP (i.e., A, A*, and A) for most beneficiary countries, i.e., other than those listed as African Growth and Opportunity Act beneficiary countries, and ATPA/ATPDEA (for Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador) was scheduled to expire on December 31, 2009, until the one year extension was enacted.
For AGOA beneficiary countries, both the GSP program (i.e., A, A*, and A) and the AGOA-GSP program (i.e., D) expire on a later date - September 30, 2015.)
(See ITT's Online Archives or 12/23/09 news, 09122305, for BP summary of the Senate's passage of H.R. 4284. See ITT's Online Archives or 12/15/09 news, 09121505, for BP summary of the House's passage of H.R. 4284.
See ITT's Online Archives or 11/20/09 news, 09112010, for BP summary of recently introduced House trade reform bill which would modify GSP and AGOA, create new preference program, etc.
See ITT's Online Archives or 11/18/09 news, 09111805, for BP summary of the Administration's expression of support for GSP and ATPA/ATPDEA renewal.)
H.R. 4284 available at http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h4284enr.txt.pdf.