The U.S. Department of the Treasury on July 8 sent to Congress its much-delayed Semi-Annual Report on International Economic and Exchange Rate Policies. While the report noted that the U.S. government believes that China’s currency, the renminbi, remains undervalued, the report did NOT cite China as a currency manipulator. The report did applaud China on its June 19 announcement that the renminbi in no longer pegged to the U.S. dollar. The report is likely to accelerate talk in Congress about moving legislation that would penalize China for its alleged currency manipulation. (See Next Article)
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FASA joined more than two dozen other organizations representing a broad swath of the U.S. business community in sending a July 22 letter to the House leadership opposing any efforts to bring China currency legislation to the House floor this week. The letter argues that the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act (HR 2378), which would impose penalties on U.S. imports from China over China’s alleged currency manipulation, will not bring jobs back to the United States, but could instead jeopardize US workers at a time when our economic recovery remains fragile. The U.S. House of Representatives have been holding a series of votes this week to highlight Congress’ efforts to help U.S. manufacturers. FASA also signed on to a June 30 letter with more than 25 other association expressing opposition to similar legislation that Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had proposed offering as an amendment on the Senate floor. The coalition opposing the proposed currency legislation, of which FASA is a member, also prepared a fact sheet debunking several myths related to China’s currency. Thanks in part to FASA's efforts, House Democratic leaders decided not to bring this legislation to the floor as part of its "manufacturing week". Likewise, Schumer's amendment in the Senate never materialized. The issue could come up again when Congress returns in September from its month-long August recess.
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FASA sent comments July 23 to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) urging them to make a number of significant changes to their proposed rulemaking on the implementation of the Publicly Available Consumer Product Safety Information Database as well as dramatically limit the scope of the database when it is initially rolled out to ensure that the data going into the database is verified, accurate and appropriate. Otherwise, FASA feels that the database, which is as required under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), could have a significant, adverse effect on a wide variety of businesses, including FASA members, diminish the effectiveness of the database for consumers and, ultimately, damage the database’s overall success. FASA also joined the July 23 CPSC Coalition comments that echoed many of these concerns.
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The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) requests comments and information regarding the technological feasibility of consumer products for children 12 years of age and younger being able to meet the 100 parts per million (ppm) lead standard that goes into effect on August 11, 2011. Section 101(a) of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) currently requires children's products meet a 300 ppm lead standard. The 100ppm lead standard goes into
effect unless the CPSC determines that a product, material or component cannot meet the 100 ppm limit. Comments are due September 27.
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The House Energy and Commerce Committee on July 21 approved, by a vote of 31-22, the FASA-opposed Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act of 2010 (HR 4678). The legislation now moves to the House floor, where it could be voted on by the full U.S. House of Representatives in September after Congress returns from their August recess. If approved by Congress, the legislation would require all foreign manufacturers to register an agent in the United States. This agent must be able to accept legal service to facilitate legal actions in product liability and other disputes. Failure to demonstrate that a foreign manufacturer has a U.S. agent that can accept legal service would lead to the banning of all U.S. imports from that foreign manufacturer. The legislation would be costly for
U.S. importers, as well as U.S. manufacturers sourcing inputs from overseas, and could significantly disrupt supply chains. There are efforts to add similar language to unrelated legislation moving through the U.S. Senate. Both the House and Senate could have voted on the legislation as early as this week, but thanks in part to the efforts of FASA and a FASA-supported ad-hoc business coalition, the House and Senate leadership agreed to delay any possible action on the legislation until September.
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The Senate plans to vote before leaving for its August recess on FASA-supported legislation aimed at giving small businesses more opportunity to have access to capital. FASA sent a July 13 letter urging every senator to vote for the legislation. The Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 (H.R. 5297) extends from $2 million to $5 million the size of the loans that the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) can provide
guarantees. The legislation would expand the SBA loan guarantee from 75 to 90 percent of the value of the loan. Both programs have proven vital to expanding access to credit for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) at a critical time. The legislation includes a bi-partisan amendment sponsored by Senators George Lemieux (R-FL) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) that would create a new pool of money available SMEs through the Small Business Lending Fund. The fund would provide $30 billion in new capital to small banks, which could lead to as much as $300 billion in new lending that would otherwise not be available to small and medium-sized businesses in this tough economy.
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Last week Senate Democrats announced that they would not proceed with energy reform legislation prior to the August Congressional recess. Senate leadership conceded that they do not have the votes to move forward
with legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Democrats, however, hope to pass a much smaller bill before the end of the year which increases company liability for oil spills. There is still a possibility that Democrats in the Senate will attempt to push a larger bill in a lame duck session of congress, however it is still unclear if there will be enough votes in a post-election Senate.
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FASA signed on to a July 22 letter from the Green Chemistry Alliance to the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). The letter was in response to Safer Consumer Product Alternatives draft regulations issued by the DTSC on June 23. In its letter, the Green Chemistry Alliance affirmed its commitment to bring safe products to market, but also voiced concerns over the implementation and the scope of the regulations.
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The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has announced that it has extended the deadline for
issuing its final recommendations to President Barack Obama with regards to the ITC's 1205 study on the tariff classification of footwear with textile outsoles. The new deadline for the final recommendations is now August 9. With this delay, any changes to the current treatment of footwear with textile outsoles is very unlikely to occur before January 2011 and now possibly later. The ITC issued preliminary recommendations in May regarding the tariff classification of footwear with textile outsoles. The ITC's preliminary recommendations veered slightly away from the U.S. Department of Treasury's recommendations in the initial January 15 letter Treasury sent to the ITC urging the ITC to launch the investigation. FASA supports Treasury's proposal, with some modifications, because the proposal recognizes that 99 percent of all footwear sold in the United States today is imported and legitimizes the use of textile outsoles to reduce the import duties paid on those imports. At the same time, Treasury's proposal protects the small, yet vibrant, footwear manufacturing industry that still exists in the United States.
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The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced in its June 30 release of its annual review of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program that it has denied a petition to remove sleeping bags from benefits under the GSP program. As a result, U.S. imports of sleeping bags from GSP-eligible beneficiary countries will still be able to enter the United States duty-free under the GSP program. GSP is currently set to expire on December 31, 2010. Congress is expected to renew GSP for a short duration before the program expires.
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Effective August 1, 2010, all cargo shipped on passenger flights originating in the United States must be screened at the piece level — the individual item within a shipment — before it can be loaded on the aircraft. TSA has created the voluntary Certified Cargo Screening Program (CCSP) which allows air supply chains to screen their own cargoes to avoid shipping delays.
For more information on this requirement and CCSP, please see TSA's CCSP page, or call the U.S. government's Trade Information Center at 1-800-USA-TRAD(E).
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For questions or for additional information, please contact Nate Herman, FASA’s Director of Government Relations, at 703-797-9062 or nherman@geminishippers.com.
