Senate introduces tariff relief bill

A bipartisan group of senators unveiled legislation on Wednesday that would overhaul the process for businesses requesting tariff relief,   mirroring a recently introduced House bill. 

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) debuted the measure that would put the International Trade Commission in charge of requests to lower or reduce duties on manufacturing components that aren’t produced in the United States. 

{mosads}The miscellaneous tariff bill (MTB) aims to ensure that Congress won’t violate an earmark ban.

“With this legislation, we offer a smart bicameral and bipartisan approach for MTBs — one that improves transparency and allows domestic firms to receive appropriate tariff relief on products that can only be found abroad so that those firms can produce American-made goods here at home,” Hatch said.

Customs legislation cleared earlier this year required Congress to find a path forward on an MTB process.

“We need to do everything we can to make U.S. manufacturers more competitive — that includes passing a miscellaneous tariff bill that reduces costs of components we don’t make here in the U.S.,” Wyden said.

“This bill breaks two years of gridlock and starts the process moving again,” he said. 

The last bill expired at the end of 2012 costing U.S. business millions in additional costs.

Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) have all signed onto the measure.  

The House introduced its legislation earlier on Wednesday. 

Portman said the bill builds on the work that he and McCaskill started several years ago.

“The bill will simplify an outdated and complex system and provide much needed assistance to U.S. manufacturers who face unfair foreign competition,” Portman said.

McCaskill said that the measure would allow U.S. businesses to access tariff relief in a “transparent, streamlined way that’s based solely on merit — and that’s something folks on both sides of the aisle can get behind.”

Previously, U.S. firms went straight to their congressional representative to request a waiver. 

Now the ITC would vet the request and send the decision to Congress where the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees would draft legislation with those recommendations.

The Senate had included MTB legislation in the customs bill but it didn’t survive a conference with the House.

“Manufacturers are encouraged that, after three years of calling upon Congress to act, leaders in the House and Senate have introduced legislation to create a transparent and predictable MTB process that eliminates unnecessary border taxes,” said Linda Dempsey, vice president of international economic affairs for the National Association of Manufacturers.

“The NAM urges that MTB reform legislation advance as soon as possible, because the sooner we move forward with these needed reforms, the sooner relief will be available to manufacturers,”  Dempsey said.