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Congress Votes to Repeal Controversial Anti-Dumping Law
Congress last week voted to repeal the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act, an anti-dumping trade law that allows U.S. firms to receive duties from foreign rivals, as part of a larger budget bill (S. 1932) that narrowly passed the House by a 216-214 margin.
Commonly known as the “Byrd amendment,” the law was enacted in 2000 through the efforts of Senator Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.) and will be repealed in October 2007.
NAHB supported repeal of the Byrd amendment because it encourages domestic industries to file trade cases in the hope that any duties collected will go directly to their corporate coffers instead of into the U.S. Treasury.
The controversial law is linked to the U.S./Canadian softwood lumber dispute.
The U.S. Customs Service has collected approximately $5 billion in duties to date, and the funds have yet to be distributed.
Several rulings by North American Free Trade Agreement panels have found that current duties on softwood lumber shipments are illegal and that the U.S. should repay the duties that have been collected.
However, the U.S. has been dragging out the legal proceedings in an effort to reach a negotiated settlement.
In addition, the World Trade Organization has ruled that the Byrd amendment violates its trade rules.
President Bush signed the budget bill into law last week.
For more information, e-mail Jason Lynn at NAHB, or call him at 800-368-5242 x8307.
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