Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, President, I rise today to introduce the Enforcing Orders and Reducing Circumvention and Evasion Act, or the ENFORCE Act, of 2011.

For almost a century, Democratic and Republican Administrations have promoted and protected America's anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws. These laws recognize the reality that foreign competitors don't always play by the rules. Some employ unfair and unscrupulous trade practices that put American businesses at a serious disadvantage. So, when it comes to ensuring that American businesses and workers have a level playing field to compete, anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws are the first line of defense.

But it is not enough to just pass these laws; they need to be enforced. Duties don't work unless they are assessed and collected. But just like some people cheat their way out of taxes, the same is true for foreign supplies and dishonest importers who evade and flout the anti-dumping and countervailing duties that protect American business and workers from grievous economic harm.

These suppliers and importers are what I call trade cheats.

You see, under U.S. trade laws, when a certain import is found to be unfairly traded, that is, it benefits from government subsidies or is sold below market prices, the U.S. Department of Commerce imposes additional duties on these imports. These duties, we call them anti-dumping and countervailing duties, or AD/CVD, ensure that American producers are only asked to compete on a playing field that is level.

But we have these trade cheats out there. They cheat American taxpayers out of the revenue that is supposed to be collected on imports, and which is needed to reduce the budget deficit, and they cheat American producers out of business that may otherwise be theirs. In short, the trade cheats steal American jobs and America's treasure.

The trade cheats are increasingly, and brazenly, employing a variety of schemes to evade AD/CVD orders. Sometimes, they hustle their merchandise through foreign ports to claim that it originates from somewhere it doesn't. Other times, the trade cheats will provide fraudulent information' to government authorities at American ports of entry, or they engage in schemes to mislabel and misrepresent imports.

In recognizing this problem, I convened a hearing in the subcommittee on international trade, customs and global competitiveness entitled ``Enforcing America's Trade Laws in the Face of Customs Fraud and Duty Evasion'' in May of this year. At this hearing we heard from Senators of both political parties and companies from across this nation about their concerns regarding this lack of enforcement. Others launched their own investigation into the matter.

My own staff on the Finance Subcommittee on Trade, Customs and Competitiveness learned that if often takes Customs and Border Protection, CBP, nearly a year to ask its sister agencies for investigatory help when it is needed and when CBP does refer a case to an outside agency they don't follow-up to

ensure that it gets handled. It generally takes several years for the government to conclude an investigation into evasion and reassess the appropriate duties that should have been collected.

Customs and Border Protection, is the nation's frontline defense against unfair trade and is responsible for enforcing U.S. trade remedy laws and collecting AD/CV duties. Yet, if you listen to the concerns of domestic producers, like those who testified at my hearing, timely and effective enforcement of AD/CVD orders remains problematic and AD/CV duty evasion continues, seemingly unabated.

While Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and CBP are dragging their feet to enforce our trade laws, this country's domestic manufacturers are being hammered by foreign trade cheats. It is not like the cheaters wait around to get caught and pay their fines, they disappear long before the so called government watchdogs arrive. ICE and CBP are the two principal American government agencies that are supposed to police this beat. In my view, one of them, CBP, treats allegations of duty evasion like junk mail. The other, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has been more visible on the issue of alleged illegal movie downloads than taking steps to protect tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs that are threatened by unfair trade.

Such lollygagging is not only hurting our domestic producer, it is hurting our country's treasury. U.S. industry sources estimate that approximately $91 million in AD/CV duties that were supposed to be applied to just four steel products went uncollected as a result of evasion in 2009. This is an amount equal to 30 percent of all AD/CV duties CBP collected that year. With 300 current AD/CVD orders in place on countless products from over 40 countries, the potential for AD/CV duty evasion is vast, and hundreds of millions of AD/CV duties may be unaccounted for. Every penny counts and we have an obligation to the American businesses, and the workers they rely on, to do a better job.

The bill I am introducing today, with Senators SNOWE, MCCASKILL, BLUNT, BROWN from Ohio, PORTMAN, and SCHUMER, will go a long way toward empowering the federal government to do a better job to combat the trade cheats and enforce U.S. trade laws. I would like to highlight just a few of the main provisions.

First, the ENFORCE Act would formalize a process by which allegations of evasion are acted on. Because CBP primarily relies on the private sector to identify evasion of AD/CVD, the ENFORCE Act would formalize that process by allowing stakeholders to file a petition alleging evasion and require CBP to initiate an investigation pursuant to the petition within 10 days.

Second, our bill would establish a rapid-response timeline by which CBP would investigate allegations of evasion. The ENFORCE Act would give the CBP 90 days, after an investigation of evasion begins, to make a preliminary determination into whether there is a reason to believe an importer is evading an AD/CVD order. So if an affirmative preliminary determination is made, AD/CV duties would be required to be collected in cash until the investigation is concluded and any entries of subject merchandise would not be liquidated by CBP in order to ensure that the correct amount of duties owed can be collected. CBP would also be required to make a final determination as to whether merchandise subject to an investigation under the bill entered into the U.S. through an evasion scheme within 120 days after CBP has issued a preliminary determination. Flexibilities are added to these timelines for cases that are complex. All of this would put an end to the lollygagging that our domestic producers would desperately like to see ended.

Third, the ENFORCE Act would help facilitate information sharing. Our bill would establish clear instruction and guidelines to promote appropriate information sharing among the various agencies to better combat evasion and protect consumers from unsafe goods. Everyone knows that the more information law enforcement agencies have, the better they are able to do their jobs.

Last and certainly not least, our bill would establish accountability. CBP's broad mandate to facilitate trade, enforce trade remedy laws, and protect national security often leads to inconsistent efforts to combat evasion of the trade remedy laws. The ENFORCE Act would require CBP to provide annual reports to us here in Congress about the effectiveness of its enforcement efforts and the job it is required to do to protect American producers from the harm of unfairly traded imports.

As you can see, this bill presents a common-sense strategy to combat trade cheating and the evasion of antidumping and countervailing duty collection. Enforcing U.S. trade laws and combating unfair trade practices must be a central pillar of an economic and trade policy that is designed to promote economic growth and job expansion, especially as we continue to recover from a recession.

I want to take a moment to recognize and thank some terrific colleagues of mine in the Senate that are joining me in introducing this legislation. I thank you, and your staff, for your help and for your efforts. I would also like to thank the Retail Industry Leaders Association, the Committee to Support U.S. Trade Laws, and the Coalition to Enforce Antidumping & Countervailing Duty Orders for their valuable input. I look forward to more of their input going forward.

I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate and with my friends in the House of Representatives to build support for this initiative and to take action on behalf of American producers.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the RECORD.

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