A bill that would require every imported dog to have a health certificate from a licensed veterinarian, and would create an online database with import permits and documentation, was introduced Aug. 4 by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn. Within 18 months of the bill becoming law, the U.S. Department of Agriculture would be required to promulgate final regulations on that verification and on how dogs would be denied entry without the documentation.
Trade Promotion Authority, colloquially known as "fast track," expired in July, and the Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee are asking the Biden administration to talk to Congress about bringing TPA back. "Like you, we believe that with the right global trading rules in place, American workers and businesses not only can compete in the global economy -- they can win. And like you, we agree that the wrong thing to do in the face of these challenges 'is to put our heads in the sand and say no more trade deals,'" they wrote, quoting an essay by Joe Biden published in 2020.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill being debated in the Senate this week invests $17 billion in port infrastructure, according to a White House summary of the more than 2,000-page bill. That money would go to maintenance backlogs, emissions and congestion near ports, and for electrification and other low-carbon technologies at ports of entry. It also invests $25 billion in airports.
The chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, with a bipartisan group of co-sponsors, is proposing that minks raised for fur production be added to the Lacey Act. That would prevent the sale, possession or transportation of captive American mink and their pelts. The text of MINKS are Superspreaders Act was published July 30. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., was joined by 18 co-sponsors, including seven Republicans, led by Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and the ranking member of the Trade Subcommittee on Ways and Means. The change would take effect one year after enactment. “The factory farming of mink threatens public health, especially as we continue fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic,” DeLauro said in a press release when the bill was introduced. “The evidence is clear: mink operations can incubate and spread new COVID-19 variants and pose a unique threat of extending the pandemic. At the same time, with virtually no domestic market, the U.S. mink industry has been in steady decline for years. Now is the time for this legislation to become law, and I am urging all of my colleagues to support this bipartisan effort.”
Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, introduced a bill that would create a chief pharmaceutical negotiator at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and would ask USTR to investigate whether Section 301 actions should be taken against high-income countries that impose price controls on American-made pharmaceuticals. The USTRx Act text was published July 26. Arrington is asking the agency to investigate if the price controls are discriminatory, if the countries deny reciprocal market access to U.S. products, and if the price controls "are not market-based or do not appropriately recognize the value of innovative medicines" and "diminish incentives for innovation in a manner that delays, prevents, or otherwise adversely impacts the introduction of new medicines in the United States."
The House’s Republican Study Committee released a counterproposal to the Senate’s Endless Frontier Act that would ban all imports made in Xinjiang and authorize more employees for CBP to stop imports made with forced labor. The committee’s Countering Communist China Act, released July 29, would ban all “goods, wares, articles, and merchandise mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part” in Xinjiang or by people working with the Xinjiang government. Certain import exceptions would be available if CBP determines the goods are not produced from forced labor. The bill would also authorize CBP to hire 28 employees specifically devoted to stopping forced-labor related imports.
Eight Republican senators, led by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., introduced a bill July 29 that would require goods manufactured or grown in Gaza or the occupied West Bank to be labeled "Made in Israel" rather than "Made in the West Bank." Goods from the occupied territories were labeled Made in Gaza/West Bank from 1995 until early this year, when some parts of the West Bank continued to use "Made in the West Bank," but others switched to "Made in Israel" (see 2011200049). The part of the West Bank where nearly all of the 400,000 Jewish settlers live is the section of the West Bank that changed designations.
Some of the most liberal members of the Senate, led by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., introduced a farming bill earlier this month, that, among other things, would bring back country of origin labeling for beef and pork, and expand the labeling to dairy products. Fourteen progressives in the House, led by Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., introduced a companion bill. Six years ago, the World Trade Organization said the COOL rules passed by Congress discriminated against Canadian and Mexican cattle operations, and the law was repealed to avoid retaliatory tariffs from the NAFTA countries (see 1512210002).
Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., joined with Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., to take a new approach in the argument that American produce growers are losing money because of unfair competition from Mexican imports. The bill would create a seasonal and perishable crop loss subsidy program through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which the bill's sponsors say "would help producers make up the difference between their production costs and the market costs that have been driven down by unfairly subsidized foreign products. Producers electing to participate in the crop loss program would need to show that the reduced market price is due to imports of their same crop from foreign competitors." The bill was introduced July 21.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is delaying a nomination hearing on Chris Magnus to lead CBP, because he is dissatisfied with the response from the Department of Homeland Security to his questions about how federal law enforcement responded to unrest in Portland, Oregon, last summer, a Wyden spokesman said.