Recent trade-related bills introduced in Congress include:
Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., is considering legislation this fall that would "clarify" the standards for issuing injunctions and U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) exclusion orders related to standard-essential patents, she said July 30. Witnesses at a July 30 subcommittee hearing had made it evident that some standard-setting organizations are taking antitrust concerns related to standard-essential patents (SEPs) "seriously" by voluntarily adopting best practices and updating their intellectual property rights policies, Klobuchar said.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related issues:
CBP extended the comment period by 30 days for the proposed extension of its existing Passenger List/Crew List (CBP Form I-418) information collection, which it plans to submit to the Office of Management and Budget for review and approval. CBP proposes to extend the expiration date of this information collection with no change to the burden hours.
Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated July 26. The corresponding downloadable rulings are now available.
In the July 31 issue of the Customs Bulletin (Vol. 47, No. 32), CBP published a notice that proposes to modify a ruling and similar treatment regarding the tariff classification of bushings used in marine propulsion systems.
The relaxation of tariffs on imported footwear and footwear components would kill the last of the U.S. footwear manufacturing operations, said the Rubber and Plastic Footwear Manufacturers Association's (RPFMA) lawyer Marc Fleischaker in a July 31 email to International Trade Today. Fleischaker was responding to comments from the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America (FDRA) and its President, Matt Priest, urging consideration within Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations on the effect of higher footwear duties on U.S. jobs (see 13073011). The FDRA said higher duties haven't stemmed the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs and have prevented footwear companies from adding other U.S. jobs elsewhere in the supply chain.
CBP posted a new issue of its Frontline magazine, CBP's quarterly magazine on border security.
CBP issued its July 31 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 47, No. 32), which contains notices of the following ruling actions:
New certification requirements proposed by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) threaten to add new liability issues and costs in the use of customs brokers, said the Express Association of America (EAA) in comments to the CPSC. The EAA joined a slew of other trade associations and companies that voiced major concerns with the proposal at the CPSC (see 13073014). There were numerous objections to the new rules in the comments (here), some of which compared the proposal to the controversial filing requirements imposed under the Lacey Act.