Climate champion Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., used his perch at the head of the Senate Budget Committee to ask witnesses about the future of electric vehicles. Although Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., helped shape the panel, the future of electric vehicle production in the U.S. seemed somewhat cloudy if Republicans are able to win back the White House and Senate and retain a House majority, given most Republicans on the panel's views of the EV subsidies that are reshaping the EV supply chain.
The Senate Appropriations Committee unveiled an FY 2025 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act last week that would provide $45 million for the Federal Maritime Commission, $3.5 million below the Biden administration’s request but $5 million above the FY 2024 enacted level and $2 million above the House version of the bill (see 2406260007).
Senators criticized both Congress and the administration's lack of action to use lower tariffs to build relationships in the developing world, at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing on strategic competition with China. The hearing, which was meant to focus on China's influence in Africa, Latin America and Europe, and what the U.S. could do to counter it, was held July 30.
Senate Finance Committee member Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., looking forward to the opportunity to rewrite tax laws next year as the Trump-era tax cuts expire, recently told a tax reporter at Punchbowl News that he will be pushing a carbon border adjustment tax, what he calls a "foreign pollution fee." He said it would make American production more cost competitive and help "our balance of trade" (see 2311030006).
Senate appropriators marked up a bill that would spend $2 million more a year on the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and $4.1 million more on the International Trade Commission, in each case matching the president's budget request.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., introduced a bill that would require the president to impose tariffs of at least 500% on all products imported from countries that buy oil or petroleum products from Iran.
At a field hearing in Michigan, House Select Committee on China Chairman Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., and committee member Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., emphasized electric vehicle battery maker Gotion's ties to suppliers that use Uyghur forced labor, and questioned why Gotion should be allowed to open factories in their states. Gotion declined to send a representative to testify, they said.
A coalition of business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the E-Merchants Trade Council, the National Foreign Trade Council and the Express Association of America, is pushing back against the de minimis legislation that was approved in the House Ways and Means Committee earlier this year, arguing that it would be "a massive cost to the federal government," shift trade to the mail, and create congestion at airports and a wave of abandoned packages.
A recently introduced bill would create a 10-year tariff exemption for bicycle parts, with importers required to certify and document to CBP that the parts were used in the assembly of bicycles in the U.S. to qualify for the exemption, according to the text of the bill, released July 24.
New Democrat Coalition trade task force leaders, joined by economic growth task force leaders, called on House and Senate leaders "to prioritize the reauthorization and modernization of AGOA," the African Growth and Opportunity Act. They said it should be renewed as quickly as possible, ahead of its September 2025 expiration.