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  1. DIVISION K – Committee on Ways and Means
    1. Trade Adjustment Assistance Modernization Act of 2021
    2. TAA for Workers
    3. TAA for Communities
    4. TAA for Community Colleges
    5. TAA for Firms
    6. TAA for Farmers
    7. Generalized System of Preferences and Miscellaneous Tariff Bill Act of 2021
    8. Import Security and Fairness Act
    9. National Critical Capabilities Defense Act
    10. The Level the Playing Field Act 2.0
    11. House WTO Resolution Reaffirming the Commitment of the United States as A Member of the World Trade Organization

DIVISION K – Committee on Ways and Means

Trade Adjustment Assistance Modernization Act of 2021

  • On June 17, 2021, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Chair of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade and 22 other Members introduced the Trade Adjustment Assistance Modernization Act of 2021, which makes key improvements in all of the various TAA programs, as outlined below.

  • Trade Adjustment Assistance provides a lifeline of key workforce development services and monetary support to workers wo have lost their jobs due to trade.

  • Last year, the COVID-19 pandemic’s disruption of trade and critical U.S. supply chains played a key role in the economy’s downturn and the hardship that workers endured.

  • To respond strongly to the needs of our trade-impacted workforce, the Trade Adjustment Assistance Modernization Act is legislation that modernizes the TAA programs, to ensure benefits reach the most severely affected communities. In addition, the TAA’s funding proposals in this legislation help ensure that the program helps address inherent racial disparities and inequities in our economy.

  • This legislation makes key improvements to ensure that each of the TAA programs meet the challenges American workers, firms, farmers, and communities face. DIVISION K – Committee on Ways and Means Trade Adjustment Assistance Modernization Act of 2021

TAA for Workers

  • TAA for Workers provides a lifeline of key workforce development services and monetary support to workers who have lost their jobs due to trade. However, the program falls short in significant ways. It lacks funding to address the economic crisis; its support levels for covered workers have been stagnant for decades; and it unfairly limits workers’ eligibility and unnecessarily restricts their flexibility.

  • The bill makes substantial improvements to the TAA for Workers program, including the following

    • Reauthorizes the program for 7 years and significantly increases the funding to $1 billion a year.

    • Increases respective allowances for job search and relocations to $2,000 and establishes a new $2,000 childcare allowance.

    • Automatically extends income support for up to 6 months for workers who complete training during periods of heightened unemployment and are unable to find suitable employment.

    • Reforms eligibility criteria so that all workers impacted by trade are eligible.

    • Restores program flexibility so that workers in different circumstances are better able to take advantage of the program.

    • Requires new outreach to historically underserved communities to ensure that all workers are able to take advantage of the program.

TAA for Communities

  • Congress created a TAA for Communities program that was meant to provide financial and strategic assistance to communities seeking to revitalize in the wake of trade disruption. That program faced operational and funding challenges that prevented its success. This legislation would rectify the issues with the previous version of the program and ensure that significant funding reaches trade-impacted communities. Among its provisions, the bill does the following:

    • Establishes the TAA for Communities Program: To address issues related to the 2009 implementation, the program uses existing competencies and establishes a separate pool of funding within the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration for trade-affected communities.

    • Initiates Proactive Outreach to Communities: Provides outreach directly to those communities that qualify for assistance but may not have the means of identifying and applying for funding opportunities.

    • Institutes a Whole of Government Approach: Assists communities in developing a plan for applying to a suite of existing grants and other funding opportunities from the local, state, and federal government.

TAA for Community Colleges

  • In 2010, the TAA for Community Colleges and Career Training Program devoted $2 billion in funding to support the development of U.S. community colleges across the country. Although the program was widely viewed as a great success, U.S> community colleges have received little to no resources since the initial funding more than a decade ago.

  • This legislation would build on the success of the previous program and deliver a new injection of funds that community colleges desperately need. The bill would provide $9 billion over 7 years to fill the funding vacuum that has persisted since the beginning of the Obama Administration.

TAA for Firms

  • The TAA for Firms program has a decades-long history of providing support to firms facing increased competition from abroad. The program proactively provides these firms with a resource before they are forced to go out of business and has a fantastic record of success. It also has bipartisan support in Congress.

  • This legislation builds on this foundation and provides new funding to ensure that more firms can access the program and stay in business.

  • The bill includes significant improvements to the program, including the following:

    • Expands Eligibility & Streamlines Certification: Like TAA for Workers, eligibility for TAA for Firms is limited, and the certification process can take six months. This bill expands eligibility and tightens deadlines related to the certification process.

    • Improves Outreach: The bill requires improved outreach to underserved communities and firms that may be eligible to receive assistance under the program, including the development of a strategy to better serve minority- and women-owned businesses. i.

    • Increases Funding: Given the current backlog of petitions, the overall success of the program and previous funding levels ($50 million per year in 2009), the bill reauthorizes the program for 7 years and provides $50 million in funding each year.

TAA for Farmers

  • The TAA for Farmers program has provided critical resources to both large and small farmers facing import competition, but it hasn’t received any new funding in a decade. When funded, TAA for Farmers provides targeted assistance to farmers who face increasing competition from abroad to support their continued ability to grow.

  • This bill makes improvements in the program, including the following:

    • Increases Benefits: The current program provides modest support (up to $4,000 for short-term and $8,000 for long-term plans) to enact a business plan. Many farmers state that these levels simply are not sufficient to respond to increasing import competition. The bill increases these amounts to ensure the program is providing enough support to make a meaningful difference for a farmer.

    • Improves Outreach: The bill requires the USDA to improve its outreach and support to small and historically disadvantaged farmers, groups that federal government agricultural support policies have too often overlooked.

Generalized System of Preferences and Miscellaneous Tariff Bill Act of 2021

  • On June 17, 2021, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Chair of the Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee on Trade, and 13 other Members introduced the Generalized System of Preferences and Miscellaneous Tariff Bill Act of 2021. The Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) is an outdated program that inadequately addresses serious labor violations, omits criteria related to the environment, lacks needed transparency and fails to meet the standards of our more recent preference programs.

  • This legislation modernizes the program’s eligibility criteria by adding an environmental criterion and updating the labor criteria. It also adds new criteria on human rights, rules of law, anti-corruption, and equitable economic development. It also adds new annual country eligibility reviews and transparency requirements while enhancing public access and participation in the program.

  • The Miscellaneous Tariff Bill (MTB) eliminates or reduces duties on certain eligible U.S. imports through December 31, 2023, retroactive for four months, to support domestic manufacturers. The bill reauthorizes the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act of 2016 (AMCA) for two more MTB cycles and excludes finished products from future MTBs authorized under the AMCA.

Import Security and Fairness Act

  • On January 18, 2022, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Chair of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, introduced the Import Security and Fairness Act. This legislation strengthens U.S. international trade import laws to stop non-market economies from exploiting the de minimis threshold that allows imports valued under $800 to come into the United States without paying duties, taxes, or fees. Imports that do not have to pay duties, taxes, and fees at the border gain a significant competitive advantage over other similar products, particularly when imported from countries with markets distorted by government intervention.

  • To address concerns related to U.S. competitiveness, this legislation specifically prohibits goods from countries that are both non-market economies and on the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) Priority Watch List, regarding violations of intellectual property standard from benefitting from de minimis treatment, such as China. The U.S. government has found that such countries provide unfair benefits to their companies. This change ensures that shipments from these countries don’t benefit further under U.S. law.

  • To address concerns regarding compliance with U.S. laws, this legislation makes common-sense changes that would require U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to collect more information on de minimis shipments and prohibit importers that have been suspended or debarred from being able to use de minimis. This provision provides statutory support for the ongoing work that multiple administrations at CBP have already started.

National Critical Capabilities Defense Act

  • On December 20, 2021, Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), and Victoria Spartz (R-IN) introduced the National Critical Capabilities Defense Act.

  • This critical bill would establish a review process that would protect the United States supply chain from foreign adversaries like China and Russia. It would create a whole-of-government screening process for outbound investments and the offshoring of critical capacities and supply chains to ensure that the United States can quickly detect supply chain vulnerabilities.

  • Companies at a minimum should be required to report on their proposed offshoring of supply chains so the United States can better protect critical manufacturing capacity here at home and safeguard American workers and our national, economic, and health security.

  • The frayed American supply chain and our continued bleeding of industrial capacity offshore represents a dangerous national security threat to the United States. This watershed, bipartisan, bicameral legislation will take a major step to provide needed transparency and tools to prevent supply chains and critical industries from being offshored to our adversaries.

The Level the Playing Field Act 2.0

  • On December 2, 2021, Reps. Terri Sewell (D-AL) and Bill Johnson (R-OH) introduced the bipartisan Level the Playing Field Act 2.0 in order to level the playing field for American workers. The Level the Playing Field Act 2.0 would strengthen U.S. trade remedy laws to protect American workers and combat China’s unfair, anti-free market trade practices that distort the global market. The bill has the support of the United Steelworkers and the American Iron and Steel Institute.

  • The bill is designed to combat many of China’s most egregious practices, such as the following:

    • Country Hopping to Escape U.S. Trade Remedies: After all the work of winning an anti-dumping and countervailing duty case, relief can be temporary as foreign producers move their factories to other countries to evade the Anti-Dumping/Countervailing Duty Orders. This bill creates a new successive Anti-Dumping/Countervailing Duty investigation to combat repeat offenders by making it easier for petitioners to bring new cases when production moves to another country. The bill also outlines expedited timelines for successive investigations.

    • Belt and Road Initiative Subsidies: Currently, the Department of Commerce can only consider subsidies provided by the government under investigation. However, with the expansion of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, China is beginning to subsidize production in countries outside of China. This bill would give the Department of Commerce the authority to apply countervailing duties law to subsidies provided by a government to a company operating in a different country.

    • Circumventing U.S. Laws: The bill imposes statutory requirements for anti-circumvention inquiries to clarify the process and timeline. It also specifies the deadlines for preliminary and final determinations, which currently lack statutory deadlines.

House WTO Resolution Reaffirming the Commitment of the United States as A Member of the World Trade Organization

  • The House WTO Resolution resolves that it is the sense of the House of Representatives that:

    • The United States should continue to lead reform efforts to ensure that the World Trade Organization functions as agreed by the membership and is updated appropriately for the 21st century.

    • The United States should continue to urge other WTO members to work with the United States to achieve needed reforms so that the WTO and its members can address unjustified barriers to trade and promote economic norms that improve the standard of living across the world.

    • The United States Trade Representative should continue to lead and work with other countries to pursue reforms at the WTO that create new rules and structures that can serve the United States interests while promoting peace, prosperity, and open markets and societies.

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