Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., sought unanimous consent to pass the compromise text of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act on Dec. 15, but Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., prevented quick approval of the bill after Rubio declined to attach a child tax credit extension. Passage will likely have to wait until sometime in 2022 at the soonest because of Wyden's action.
Senate and House lawmakers reached an agreement on compromise text that merges versions of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act from each chamber, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., tweeted on Dec. 14. "Happy to report that Senator [Marco] Rubio & I just reached an agreement on final text of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act," McGovern said. "We will be moving our bill through both chambers & to President Biden's desk as quickly as possible." The bill would add a rebuttable presumption that goods from the Xinjiang region of China are made with forced labor starting 180 days after enactment.
Senate and House lawmakers reached an agreement on compromise text that merges versions of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act from each chamber, and Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., told International Trade Today on Dec. 14 that he hopes the new bill can pass the House later in the day. It is scheduled for a vote after 6 p.m. McGovern continued to say his version had been stronger than the one written by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., but said he had to consider what could get through the Senate. Rubio's bill passed the Senate under unanimous consent this summer.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act passed the House of Representatives 428-1, with only Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., voting against it.
The leader of the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee focused on making it easier for domestic industry to win antidumping and countervailing duty cases and said that the de minimis statute needs to be altered, in a hearing designed to talk about how Chinese practices damage workers, businesses and the environment.
The National Defense Authorization Act, a must-pass bill, hasn't gone to the Senate floor due to disagreement over an amendment to include the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the sponsor of that amendment, is the only reason the NDAA can't go to the floor.
Indiana Republican Sen. Todd Young, who co-led the Endless Frontier bill with Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, said he hopes to learn more soon about when conferees might be named to negotiate a compromise between the House and the Senate approaches to a China package. "I'm supposed to huddle up with Sen. Schumer today. I need to approach him. I have not had an opportunity to personally chat with him about the state of things," Young said in a brief hallway interview Nov. 30.
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Sen. Marco Rubio's attempt to get the Senate version of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act appended to the National Defense Authorization Act was rejected by the Armed Services Committee chairman. But the House and Senate will likely try to get on the same page on how to change the burden of proof for forced labor content in Xinjiang products through a separate conference committee dealing with the Senate's China package and House efforts to address China.
The China package passed by the Senate -- which includes instructions to reopen Section 301 tariff exclusion applications, and a renewal of both the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill -- will go to a conference committee to reconcile the Senate bill with various pieces of House legislation, one of which changes the burden of proof on goods from Xinjiang. None of the House bills touches on tariffs, and none offers funding for chipmakers, a centerpiece of the Senate bill. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. had earlier planned to attach the China package to the must-past National Defense Authorization Act, but after Republican opposition, they decided this was a better way to get the House-Senate talks going.