The House Agriculture Committee on Feb. 16 advanced a bill that among other things will increase registration fees for EPA import approval-related services under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), the committee announced (here). For instance, the legislation would raise base registration service fees to establish import tolerances for a new active ingredient or first food use for fiscal years 2017 and 2018 from the current $289,407 to $319,072. “All requests for new uses (food and/or nonfood) contained in any application for a new active ingredient or a first food use are covered by the base fee for that new active ingredient or first food use application and retain the same decision time review period as the new active ingredient or first food use application,” the bill text states. “The application must be received by the agency in one package.” The base fee covers a maximum of five new products.
Members of the Senate Finance Committee didn’t leave a Feb. 15 private meeting with White House trade leaders with any specific sense of how the Trump administration plans to approach the myriad trade issues under its purview, two Republican members and one Democratic member of the committee said following the discussion. Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in a statement that National Trade Council chief Peter Navarro and White House Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt “offered few details” and no strategy on the administration’s trade objectives. “I made clear that any new NAFTA deal needs to eliminate rules that undermine U.S. trade remedy protections for American workers and must create market access for dairy farmers and other businesses that drive America’s rural economy, and address the full range of challenges facing American workers and businesses trying to compete in a fast-moving 21st century global economy,” Wyden said. Navarro and Greenblatt at times appeared to “contradict” congressional trade directives enacted in 2015 and were at odds with recent statements made by President Donald Trump about his trade policy, Wyden said.
Top Democratic trade lawmakers on Feb. 16 introduced legislation to require presidents to disclose any financial interests that would be “at stake” before acting on trade matters, according to announcements from Democrats on the Senate Finance (here) and House Ways and Means (here) committees. “Americans have a right to know if the President is looking out for the good of the country or just his own bottom line when he negotiates a trade deal, decides whether or not to enforce our trade laws, or decides whether to cut tariffs on imports from a developing country,” Senate Finance ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in a statement. “Trump has business interests around the world, but he continues to keep the full nature of those ties secret.” House Ways and Means ranking member Richard Neal, D-Mass., said the legislation is a “commonsense measure.” Specifically, the bills would direct the president to disseminate foreign income, assets and liabilities when the U.S. starts or continues trade or investment negotiations with another country, when taking or refraining to take certain trade enforcement actions, or when granting or modifying preferential tariff treatment under statutory trade preference programs, according to a summary of the Presidential Trade Transparency Act (here). The Republican offices of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means majority didn't comment.
The destination-based, border-adjustable tax reform framework proposed by House GOP lawmakers could bring implementation challenges but shouldn’t alter the U.S.'s overall trade balance, the nonpartisan Tax Foundation said in a report (here). Though border adjustment calls for exemption of exports from taxation, the plan might actually overtax exports in some situations, it said. It is too early to decipher whether consumers and producers could bear additional short-term cost burdens resulting from an expected tax increase brought by the plan, because transition rules remain unclear, the report says. “For example, lawmakers could phase in the border adjustment over a number of years,” the report says. “The downside of this, however, is it would reduce the provision’s effectiveness as a base broadener.”
Senate Democrats are working with GOP counterparts to negotiate a waiver to allow the confirmation of U.S. Trade Representative nominee Robert Lighthizer in exchange for Republican support for the Miners Protection Act, a spokesman for Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., confirmed in an email. Lighthizer needs the waiver because he represented the Brazilian Ministry of Industry and Commerce’s Sugar and Alcohol Institute in bilateral discussions with the U.S. to resolve ethanol trade disputes in 1985, and legal representations of foreign governments in trade discussions are prohibited by statute (see 1701250061) for anyone serving as USTR. Introduced by Manchin on Jan. 17, the Miners Protection Act would guarantee health care and pension funding for retired coal miners and widows. The offices of Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and the Senate Finance Committee didn’t immediately comment.
Lawmakers recently introduced the following trade-related bills:
The House Ways and Means Committee’s Democratic minority on Feb. 13 shuffled some panel assignments for the 115th Congress, including for the Trade Subcommittee, committee Democrats announced in an email. The addition of Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., to the committee last week (see 1702070021) following the original January announcement of Democratic committee assignments (see 1701120009) was apparently associated with the tweaks, according to the announcement. Rep. Brian Higgins, D-N.Y., will serve on the Trade Subcommittee instead of Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., under subcommittee ranking member Bill Pascrell, D-N.J.
The Senate on Feb. 13 confirmed Steven Mnuchin to be treasury secretary, after a rocky consideration process (see 1701310038 and 1702010021). President Donald Trump did the swearing in shortly after the confirmation, and said Mnuchin will protect U.S. manufacturing jobs from "those who cheat and steal and rob us blind," according to a published account of remarks made at the ceremony (here). "It won’t be that anymore; we won’t have that anymore. Countries and others won’t be able to take advantage of us. It’s a whole new era." Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., spoke in opposition to Mnuchin's confirmation on the Senate floor (here) shortly before the vote, citing questionable foreclosure practices previously carried out by OneWest Bank, formerly headed by Mnuchin. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, on the Senate floor praised Mnuchin, according to a committee press release (here).
House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, sought to downplay Senate GOP concerns recently voiced regarding the border adjustability elements of House Republicans’ tax reform plan. Speaking to reporters on Feb. 13, Brady said House proponents of the border-adjustable plan are “making progress every day” in discussions with Senate colleagues about the “bold change” proposed by the new plan. In response to a question about whether border adjustability is “still a hard sell” with Senate Republicans, Brady said, “No, I feel really good about where we’re going." Brady said that while industries will fight hard to preserve their “special tax bracket,” more lawmakers are seeing parts of the proposal as helpful to consumers and having the wherewithal to erase tax reasons to move jobs and headquarters overseas. “We’re going to continue to work with the Senate, with House members, with industry, frankly, as we listen to their solutions on how to design it in transition,” he said.
Georgia Republican Sen. David Perdue in an opinion piece and a letter to Senate colleagues criticized House Republicans’ border adjustability tax plan as detrimental to consumers, jobs and economic growth. In the letter (here), Perdue asserted that border adjustment’s “clear effect” would be an increase in consumer prices, thereby putting downward pressure on jobs. In both the letter and the opinion piece in The Washington Times (here), he cited a University of Maryland study (here) estimating that some industries could see 20 percent drops in employment. The referenced study also projects employment gains for big industries, including about 4 percent for food and beverage retailers and between 5 percent and 12 percent for the truck transportation industry. Perdue, the former head of Dollar General, argued in his letter that if border adjustability were to strengthen the dollar by up to 20 percent, the U.S. will still “end up with more losers than winners,” as U.S. investors will see foreign asset values tumble.