WASHINGTON - Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI) issued the following statement today after Chairman Camp announced that the Ways and Means Committee would hold a June hearing on granting Permanent Normal Trade Relations to Russia:
“I welcome Chairman Camp’s statement that he plans to soon schedule a hearing on granting Russia Permanent Normal Trade Relations. It is long overdue. It’s been four months since Russia was granted membership to the World Trade Organization and the Senate is already preparing legislation to address outstanding issues with regard to normalizing trade relations with Russia. There has been no such effort by the House Majority to date. Granting Permanent Normal Trade Relations with Russia clearly has commercial advantages; there are other issues that have been raised and are being discussed in the Senate and need bipartisan consultation in the House. That is the Constitutionally-mandated responsibility of the House Ways and Means Committee and it needs to be exercised actively. I look forward to working with Chairman Camp in putting together a package that strengthens our hand in addressing outstanding issues.
“I was concerned by Chairman Camp’s dismissive comments regarding the Administration’s work on labor and environmental issues in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. In recent trade agreements, Democrats fought and won inclusion of vital labor and environmental standards; what delayed their passage was the refusal of Republicans to address those standards. A similar effort to include labor and environmental standards is now being undertaken by the Administration in TPP negotiations, which require an effort to work on a bipartisan - not partisan - basis."
