House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said it would be good if the House and Senate could name their respective conferees to the committee that will aim to hash out a compromise between the two chambers' China packages. He said the next two weeks, when Congress will not be in Washington, could be put to good use by the members. But Hoyer suggested the House will wait until the Senate passes its motion to go to conference, and gives its negotiating instructions.
After passing the House 424-8 more than two weeks ago, a bill to end permanent normal trade relations status with Russia and Belarus remains hung up in the Senate. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., objected to the language renewing Magnitsky sanctions that is attached to the bill (see 2203290057).
Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, and seven other Republicans, have introduced a bill that would require the administration "respond to a cyberattack either with sanctions or a classified/unclassified report for Congress to explain why they are not acting to create more accountability," Pfluger said in a press release announcing the introduction March 30.
The door is open for Congress to name conferees to negotiate its China package, after both chambers cleared procedural hurdles last week (see 2203290044). Senators expressed optimism Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., would achieve his goal of naming conferees to a formal negotiation before the end of the work period April 8. “We’re going to divide up into areas of jurisdiction, and I’m fairly optimistic,” Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said April 1. Asked about the timeline for naming conferees, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told reporters: “Soon.”
Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., and Rep Susan Wild, D-Pa., introduced a bill that would establish congressional oversight of some U.S. sanctions on Russia. No text has been released yet, and Meuser's office didn't respond to a request for the text by press time.
A new bill introduced in the House would require the administration to study how digital currencies could help Russia evade U.S. sanctions. The legislation, introduced March 31 by Reps. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the chairman of and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also would create a new State Department officer to oversee sanctions evasion efforts involving digital currency.
The administration should continue to levy new sanctions against Chinese officials responsible for human rights abuses, including a permanent ban on exports of crowd-control equipment to Hong Kong police, the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China said in a report last week.
The Senate confirmed Alan Estevez to be the next undersecretary of the Bureau of Industry and Security March 31, marking the end of a monthslong nomination process and giving BIS its first confirmed leader in more than five years (see 2104070026 and 2107130004). Estevez will take over BIS at a critical time for the agency, which in recent weeks has been tasked with crafting and implementing hundreds of pages of new export control regulations to penalize Russia for its war in Ukraine.
Apple is considering incorporating chips made by Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Bloomberg reported March 30, a Chinese state-owned company that some lawmakers say should be placed on the Commerce Department’s Entity list. Apple is exploring placing YMTC memory chips into its iPhones after one of its key suppliers in Japan, Kioxia Holdings Corp., “lost a batch of output to contamination” in February, the report said. Apple is “keen to diversify its network and offset the risk of further disruption from the pandemic and shipping snarls,” the report said, and is now testing sample NAND flash memory chips made by YMTC.
The Senate Banking Committee will hold a nomination hearing April 6 for Paul Rosen, President Joe Biden’s nominee for assistant secretary for investment security at the Treasury Department. Rosen, who would oversee Treasury’s role as the chair of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., was nominated in March (see 2203090015).