[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 24 (Wednesday, February 10, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S810-S812]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRADE FACILITATION AND TRADE ENFORCEMENT BILL
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, 2015 was an extremely productive year for
our Nation's trade agenda as, on multiple occasions, both parties were
able to come together to take several steps to advance effective trade
policies that
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will put our Nation on a more prosperous course.
Hopefully, we will take another step here in the Senate before we
leave for the recess.
Before the Senate breaks for recess, we are likely to vote on the
conference report for H.R. 644, the Trade Facilitation and Trade
Enforcement Act of 2015, legislation that originally passed in this
Chamber back in May of last year. As chairman of the Senate Finance
Committee, I was one of the original authors of this legislation, and I
was honored to serve as the chair of the conference committee. I
believe our report represents a strong bipartisan, bicameral agreement
that will effectively address a number of trade policy priorities. In
fact, it has already passed the House with a strong, super-majority
vote. I am hoping to see a similar vote here in the Senate.
I would like to take a few minutes to talk about some of the
specifics of this legislation, which is generally referred to simply as
``the Customs bill.'' If enacted, this compromise version of the
Customs bill would address three main policy goals.
The first goal is to facilitate and streamline the flow of legitimate
trade into and out of the United States. To accomplish this goal, the
bill, among other things, reduces paperwork and bureaucratic burdens on
U.S. traders and improves consultation between trade policymakers at
the Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, agency and Congress, as well
as private actors within the trade community. It also modernizes the
way CBP operates by authorizing the continued development and
implementation of the Automated Commercial Environment, or ACE. And it
sets procedures and establishes deadlines to ensure that all import
requirements are fulfilled through a single window process. These
changes will facilitate trade by reducing unnecessary burdens and
delays created by an overly bureaucratic system. This will improve our
Nation's competitiveness, create jobs here at home, and provide
numerous benefits for our trusted trading partners.
The second major goal of the Customs bill is to improve enforcement
of our trade laws. Toward that end, the bill establishes a new process
at CBP--with strict deadlines and judicial review--for dealing with
evasion of our antidumping and countervailing duties laws. The bill
also ensures that all distributions required under the Continued
Dumping and Subsidy Act are made correctly.
I am particularly pleased that the bill improves protections for
intellectual property rights by creating additional monitoring tools to
detect violations at the border and expanding requirements for USTR's
existing Special 301 Report on our trading partners' IP enforcement
efforts to include trade secrets. It also establishes a chief
innovation and intellectual property negotiator at USTR to better
ensure that our trade agreements reflect our Nation's interests in
protecting intellectual property rights.
Providing proper enforcement and protection for intellectual property
rights--both domestically and internationally--has long been a priority
for me in large part because it is so important to Utahns. In Utah
around 19 percent of the total workforce is directly employed in IP-
intensive jobs, according to a recent report by the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce's Global Intellectual Property Center. That same study also
noted that Utah's IP industry employs, either directly or indirectly,
over 590,000 Utahns--or more than half of Utah's workforce. More
importantly, the IP industry makes up nearly 80 percent of current
exports from my home State. So, for obvious reasons, protecting IP was
one of my main focuses in drafting the Customs bill, passing it here in
the Senate, and putting together the conference report.
I am very pleased that my colleagues on the conference committee
shared my desire to improve upon our current efforts, and I think our
inventors and innovators here at home--the people who drive so much of
our economic growth and prosperity--will benefit greatly from this
legislation.
The report addresses other enforcement priorities as well, including
provisions to give clear direction and robust tools for identifying and
addressing currency manipulation from our trading partners, an issue
that I know is of particular interest to a number of our Members here
in the Senate, as well as to many of our domestic businesses and
industries. The result of all these enforcement provisions will be
greater protections for American traders and consumers and a greater
assurance that foreign competitors will not have unfair advantages in
the global marketplace.
The third major goal of the Customs conference report is to
strengthen the trade promotion authority statute that we enacted last
year, reflecting various priorities and concerns from members of both
parties. The conference report strengthens TPA by enhancing Congress's
oversight role in crafting trade policy, specifically with regard to
administration nominees and at negotiating rounds for future trade
agreements. It also strongly reaffirms that trade agreements should not
include and TPA procedures should not be used with respect to,
provisions dealing with immigration policy or greenhouse gas emissions.
The bill also establishes a new negotiating objective to address
barriers American fishermen face in exporting U.S. fish, seafood, and
shellfish.
In addition, the conference report improves provisions relating to
trafficking in persons in order to strengthen Congressional oversight
and ensure that appropriate steps are being taken to put an end to
human trafficking.
I think most of us would agree that we passed a good TPA bill last
year. I certainly think that we did. The conference report on the
Customs bill would simply ensure that the statute better reflects the
bipartisan will and role of Congress in our trade negotiations.
Those have been the three main goals of the Customs bill. With this
conference report, I think we have reached good outcomes on all three.
But that is not all. Other important issues are also addressed by the
conference report.
For example, the bill will combat politically motivated boycotts,
divestments, and sanctions against Israel, bolstering our already
strong economic ties with one of our most important strategic allies.
The conference report also provides additional trade preferences for
Nepal in order to promote economic recovery in the aftermath of the
devastating earthquake last year. With this legislation, we will also
take significant steps to promote small business exports and improve
tariff classifications relating to footwear and outerwear.
Finally, I want to acknowledge that a number of my colleagues--as
well as businesses and job creators around the country--had hoped that
the conference report on the Customs bill would include a
reauthorization of the Miscellaneous Tariff Bills or MTBs. I shared my
colleagues' desire to pass MTBs with this vehicle. As you will recall,
a revised MTB process was, after all, passed by the Senate in the
original version of the Customs bill.
There are a handful of procedural concerns that complicate this
issue--particularly over in the House--that made it difficult to
adequately address MTBs in this conference report. However, the
conference report does include a strong sense-of-Congress statement
reaffirming our shared commitment to advancing MTB legislation in a
process that provides robust consultation and is consistent with both
House and Senate rules.
And, on top of that, I just want to reaffirm my own commitment, as
the chairman of the Senate committee with jurisdiction over this issue,
to find a process that both the House and the Senate can agree on and
get MTBs over the finish line. Our businesses and manufacturers that
benefit from MTBs have waited too long for Congress to act on this
matter, and I am going to do whatever I can to forge a path forward.
Let me just say that I am very pleased with the substance of this
conference report. It has been a long road to get us here, but in my
view, it has been worth it.
I will have many people to thank in the coming days as we debate--and
hopefully pass--the conference report here in the Senate. For now, I
specifically want to thank the vice chair of the conference committee,
Chairman Kevin Brady, for his work on both the committee itself and on
the substance of the report. I also want to thank the ranking member of
the Finance Committee, Senator Wyden, for his efforts
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to ensure that our final product was truly bipartisan.
This is a good bill. It is not perfect, by any means. But once again,
it provides what I think are strong outcomes on many key policy
priorities.
Both the House and the Senate came into the conference with their own
set of demands, which required some compromise. However, throughout our
negotiations, I worked extremely hard to preserve the Finance
Committee's contributions to the Customs bill and to advance the
Senate's priorities on this legislation. And in that regard, I think we
can all be pleased with the overall outcome, even if some compromises
had to be made.
I know that some of our members have specific objections to some of
the individual compromises we had to make in order to get the deal
done. I certainly don't want to minimize anyone's concerns. Instead, I
will just say that this comes with the territory of passing legislation
that tries to reconcile differences.
As a whole, I believe this legislation provides a path on the Customs
bill that members of both parties can get behind. I am hoping we can
get past tomorrow's cloture vote and final passage and send the bill to
the President's desk in short order.
I urge all of my colleagues to work with us to make sure that
happens.
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