Bipartisan Ways and Means Letter Questions UFLPA Releases in Solar
Ten members of the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, led by Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., are questioning the proportion of electronics shipments that have been released under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), after importers provided CBP with clear and convincing evidence that their supply chains had no Xinjiang links.
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The bipartisan group wrote CBP's acting commissioner, Troy Miller, about comments the lawmakers saw by a JA Solar executive, which they said revealed that the Chinese company's solar panels "are treated differently depending on which U.S. port the products enter. This is unacceptable, particularly if it suggests that some ports are not providing appropriate scrutiny to fully implement the UFLPA."
The letter urged the agency "to utilize every tool possible to pursue a more comprehensive UFLPA enforcement strategy to keep products tainted by forced labor out of the supply chains of goods imported into the U.S."
Although the letter writers said they "appreciate" that the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force "has begun updating the UFLPA entity list more regularly," they said "it is concerning that there have only been three updates since the original list was created, despite repeated concerns raised by civil society stakeholders."
They also sought "more timely and efficient reviews of shipments entering the U.S. to give law-abiding importers and good faith actors more certainty in conducting their businesses while also optimizing deployment of CBP resources to most effectively enforce the UFLPA and other key laws."
The group asked for a CBP briefing on the administration's strategy to prevent the importation of goods produced with forced labor in China, and said effective use of CBP resources "will strengthen the case for needed resources going forward."