WASHINGTON,
April 24, 2013 – Senior
members of the Senate Finance Committee signaled today that they want the
administration to negotiate a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement that expands market access for
U.S.
agricultural exports and protects patents and other intellectual property for
such products as medicine and agricultural biotechnology traits.
Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., also said he wants to renew
Trade Promotion Authority and Trade Adjustment Assistance and set a target to
introduce a bipartisan bill by June. “Fast track authority will help us
conclude the TPP negotiations, and
that will bring concrete benefits for American ranchers, farmers, businesses
and workers,” he said in an opening statement.
Both Baucus and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the committee’s
ranking minority member, said the agreement needed to impose discipline on state
trading enterprises and “quasi-monopoly” exporters such as New Zealand’s
Fonterra dairy cooperative. Baucus also identified stronger rules against unscientific
barriers to U.S.
farm exports and intellectual property protection and enforcement as priorities
for U.S.
negotiators to seek in an agreement.
Hatch expressed uncertainty about the Obama Administration’s
commitment to an agreement “that does not lock in 18th century
mercantilism.” He said that other countries oppose the U.S. insistence
on tying labor and environmental standards to dispute settlement. “These are
issues marginally related to trade,” he said, “but the administration seems to
give them a higher priority than protection of intellectual property. He added,
“The administration seems to be more concerned with placating left-wing
interest groups than protecting innovators and job creators.”
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., who also chairs the Senate
Agriculture Committee, and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a former Finance
chairman, also encouraged negotiations to limit the reach of New Zealand’s
dairy exporter. It is “a huge problem here,” she said, and negotiators must
“overcome what is a huge home field advantage for New Zealand.”
Grassley expressed concern about “a fair amount of words
coming out of Japan
that dairy is one of their sanctuary products. We expect that dairy and
everything else is included. As with Canada, we are hopeful and
confident that we will seek full and open access.”
The U.S.
dairy industry strongly supports the negotiations, particularly with the recent
addition of Japan
to the 11 other countries participating in the agreement, U.S. Dairy Export
Council CEO Tom Suber told the hearing. “But it is important to recognize that,
if the administration brings back an unfavorable result, the dairy industry will
have no choice but to oppose it.”
However, he said, “Today we are pleased that the pieces are
in place that this agreement, properly negotiated, will provide benefits across
the dairy industry.” Suber told Hatch that he was “gratified by the interest
hat both USDA and USTR have taken”
in combating the protective “geographical indications” rule such as that
imposed by the European Union for several common and generic names of cheese
and other foods. “It has denied us access. It is a barrier. We do think they
[the U.S.
negotiators] are addressing this in the proper way.”
Suber also called for agreement to limit sanitary and
phytosanitary (SPS) non tariff barriers. The TPP
should build on the existing World Trade Organization SPS agreement with “strong
enforcement, timely adjudication of issues and binding results,” he said.
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., expressed “a high degree of
skepticism” about the likelihood of completing a successful agreement. “I have
even more skepticism when it comes to Japan, with the enormous challenge
of breaking into the auto market in that country,” he said.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., asked Suber if a strong SPS
agreement would threaten U.S.
food safety rules. “We can defend our regulations based on science,” Suber
said. “Ultimately, it should be about making sure food is safe and that the
best science is used to determine that. The enforcement mechanism is
fundamental [or else] it becomes an unending chain of consultation.”
Montana Farm Bureau President Bob Hanson raised concern
about proposed “safe harbor” language designed to shield U.S. tobacco
regulation from a challenge under SPS rules. “We
support strengthening the rules for international trade in order to diminish
the prospect of arbitrary, unnecessary trade-restricting regulations that
impede U.S.
agriculture from competing in the global marketplace,” he said.
However, the administration’s
consideration of a “safe harbor” proposal for tobacco “would create a new and
troubling precedent that undermines existing trade disciplines,” Hanson said. Such
a provision would not require that a regulation be “necessary” to achieve a
legitimate health policy objective, he said, potentially leading to “additional
protections and exceptions for products, and lead to regulatory experimentation
without the constraints of international trade rules.”
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