Ben Nelson’s Season For Duty Free Legislation
Other sites that report on Congress are writing obsessively about health care reform legislation in the Senate, and its odd state-by-state opt out provision that applies to the public option – an option on an option. My attention, however, has been drawn by another rush to opt out that has not received the attention of most writers on the Congress.
It’s the season for the weaving of highly selective loopholes in import duties, requested by powerful corporations and written up quietly in the offices of the United States Senate. Over the last couple of weeks, a huge number of exemptions from duties have been proposed, sometimes for things that the ordinary person can identify, such as ski poles and snow globes. Often, however, the requested exemptions are for extremely obscure chemicals and materials.
Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska is the king of these import loopholes. Here’s a list of the materials he proposed be exempted from import fees just last Thursday, a separate bill for each substance:
- Avermectin B
- cloquintocet-mexyl
- clodinafop-propargyl
- fludioxinil technical
- primsulfuron
- pinoxaden
- azoxytrobin
- prosulfuron technical
- mefenoxam technical
- pymetrozine technical
- cyproconazole technical
Do the American people really benefit from these particular substances being imported, instead of produced here in the United States?
