Senate Finance Committee members praised the experience of Doug McKalip, the administration's nominee to be chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. McKalip, a senior adviser on international trade policy and other matters to the agriculture secretary, is a career staffer at USDA.
The House of Representatives passed a bill that offers tax credits and grants to semiconductor manufacturers and increases government spending on science research, on a 243-187 vote on July 28. Twenty-four Republicans voted for the bill. Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., voted present, as her family founded major chipmaker Qualcomm, which will benefit from the bill.
Trade groups that represent semiconductor manufacturers and customers lauded the Senate's passage of incentives for domestic manufacturing, while unions and a union-funded advocacy group both praised the bill and said trade provisions that were not included still need to pass.
A new Senate Bill could require the U.S. to reimpose terrorism sanctions on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and others associated with the group (see 2112020014). The bill, introduced by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., would re-designate the FARC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, Cruz said in a July 22 emailed news release. Cruz said the Biden administration’s decision to “dismantle” the sanctions “has already created catastrophes” and removed accountability for the group. “My bill will begin to repair the damage of this decision,” Cruz said.
Although climate advocate Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., has hopes of introducing a bipartisan carbon border adjustment tax, he said it may take American exports being hit with carbon border tariffs in Europe to get Congress to move.
Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del, and Todd Young, R-Ind., propose that the adminsitration be able to expedite export licensing decisions and regulatory processes for countries that are facing economic coercion, such as Australia or Lithuania. The recently introduced bill also says Congress should appropriate money for export financing and sovereign loan guarantees and waive some policy requrirements to facilitate export financing. The senators say that the president would need to coordinate with allies and consult wtih Congress about whether a country is the target of economic coercion and what support is appropriate. Any actions would sunset after two years.
A group of Senate Republicans this week introduced a bill that would restrict certain U.S. crude oil exports from being shipped to foreign “adversaries.” The No Emergency Crude Oil for Foreign Adversaries Act would block U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve auctions from selling oil to China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, with certain exceptions for “national security reasons.” The bill would also require the Energy Department to report on the destinations of exported oil from previous auctions.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., who is a key decisionmaker on what to bring to the House floor, rejected out of hand the Senate minority leader's proposal to bring the Senate China competition bill up for a vote, since negotiations between the House of Representatives and the Senate have stalled.
Republicans who are in the China package negotiations say that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's tweet that said that moving even a smaller Build Back Better bill would halt negotiations was not an empty threat. He had said that while Congress was away from Washington, at the beginning of the month (see 2207010039).
Five Republican senators, only one of whom voted for the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), are asking that Senate conferees drop the directive to reopen a Section 301 exclusion process, and add a number of trade provisions only found in the House China package. Some House proposals that Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Ala., Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and Florida's two senators, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, both Republicans, want to include: