House May Proceed with Miscellaneous Trade Bill in 2009

August 18, 2009

Informed Congressional sources are now saying that the House Ways and Means Committee may introduce an omnibus miscellaneous trade bill (MTB) sometime this fall. After failing to complete action on an MTB in the 110^th Congress, Ways and Means Leaders had indicated that they were going to let their counterparts on the Senate Finance Committee take the initiative on any new MTB for the 111^th Congress. However, with the Senate Finance Committee occupied with the customs reauthorization bill and other things, prospects for an MTB in the Senate are looking increasingly dim until early 2010. As such, Ways and Means leaders may be seeking to move the process along, or to at least renew duty suspensions set to expire at the end of 2009.

Duty suspension bills passed in the MTB can lower or suspend duties on imports of manufacturing and production inputs, amend customs laws, and amend unilateral trade programs to lower business costs. Generally, MTB bills are passed by Congress every few years. However, the last bill was passed in 2006. Although the House Ways and Means Committee did begin to review hundreds of individual tariff and duty suspension bills in the 110^th Congress, the Committee was not able to complete the process of gathering them into a single omnibus trade bill.

It is possible that the House may limit its MTB to tariff and duty suspensions requested in the 110^th Congress (2007-2008). However, the Senate Finance Committee may proceed with its own MTB legislation, giving the public the opportunity to request new duty suspensions. No specific timeframe for the MTB process in the Senate has been set, but Congressional sources are hopeful that the Finance committee will call for new bills in the fall of 2009.

We will continue to provide information on our website as to the status of this legislation as it develops.   For more information on how your company can benefit from the process, please contact a Barnes/Richardson attorney.