URUGUAY ROUND AGREEMENTS ACT

DATES OF CONSIDERATION AND PASSAGE

SUMMARY OF THE BILL

TITLE I-APPROVAL OF, AND GENERAL PROVISIONS RELATING TO THE URUGUAY ROUND AGREEMENTS

Title I contains general provisions (1) on approval and entry into force of the Uruguay Round agreements, and the relationship of the agreements to Federal and State laws; (2) authorities to implement the results of the tariff negotiations; (3) procedures regarding implementation of dispute settlement proceedings affecting the United States and oversight of activities of the World Trade Organization (WTO); and (4) objectives regarding extended Uruguay Round negotiations and other related provisions.
Congress approves the Uruguay Round agreements and the Statement of Administrative Action accompanying the implementing bill, submitted by the President to the Congress on September 27, 1994. Subtitle A includes conditions for the entry into force of the agreements for the United States.
Subtitle A also sets forth the relationship of the agreements to U.S. Federal and State laws and establishes extensive Federal-State consultation procedures regarding Agreement obligations and dispute settlement proceedings affecting State laws. Subtitle B authorizes the President to proclaim the tariff modifications necessary or appropriate to implement the U.S. Uruguay Round Schedule XX.
Subtitle C sets forth consultation, notice, and reporting requirements with congressional committees, private sector advisory committees, and the public throughout WTO dispute settlement proceedings affecting the United States, and detailed procedures concerning implementation of dispute settlement findings. Subtitle C also requires an annual report to Congress on WTO activities and establishes procedures for Congressional review every five years of U.S. participation in the WTO.
Subtitle D sets forth U.S. objectives for extended negotiations on financial services, basic telecommunications, and civil aircraft; a requirement to seek the establishment of, and objectives for, a working party on internationally-recognized worker rights; and various other provisions related to implementation of agreement obligations.

TITLE II-ANTIDUMPING AND COUNTERVAILING DUTY PROVISIONS

Title II amends U.S. antidumping and countervailing duty laws to implement the Uruguay Round Antidumping and Subsidies/Countervailing Measures Agreements. In addition, it establishes mechanisms for the enforcement of U.S. rights under the Subsidies Agreement.
*7 Antidumping provisions.-Subtitle A amends U.S. antidumping law to:
* establish a new fair comparison methodology that deducts an amount for the importer"s profit from the U.S. price and provides for level of trade adjustments in the foreign market;
* require a revocation of antidumping or countervailing duties after five years unless a determination is made (in a "sunset" review) that revocation would likely lead to a continuation or recurrence of dumping or subsidization and injury;
* require an examination of duty absorption in the context of sunset reviews, on request;
* require in general that U.S. and foreign market prices be compared on an average-to-average basis in investigations, while providing a preference for average-to-individual comparisons in reviews;
* establish a special adjustment for start-up production costs;
* establish a special provision for captive production;
* improve existing anticircumvention provisions; and
* make other technical and conforming amendments to bring U.S. antidumping law into conformity with the Agreement.
Countervailing duty/subsidies provisions.-Subtitle B amends U.S. countervailing duty law and establishes procedures to enforce U.S. rights concerning foreign subsidies to:
* incorporate the Agreement"s definitions of countervailable subsidy and specificity, which largely reflect existing U.S. law;
* establish rules for injury investigations in cases where such investigations were not previously required;
* implement the Agreement"s stricter disciplines on subsidies that, by their nature, are presumed to cause harm to other countries" industries;
* implement the Agreement"s three categories of non-actionable ("green light") subsidies: for research, regional development, and certain environmental improvements;
* provide for the automatic expiration after 5 1/2 years of the green light provisions of U.S. countervailing duty law, unless extended by Congress; and
* provide a specific opportunity for action under section 301 to address instances where green light subsidies are found to cause "serious adverse effects."

TITLE III-ADDITIONAL IMPLEMENTATION OF AGREEMENTS

Title III implements in U.S. domestic law various provisions of the Uruguay Round agreements relating to import safeguard measures; foreign trade barriers and unfair trade practices; unfair practices in import trade, textiles and apparel trade; government procurement; and technical barriers to trade (product standards).
Safeguards provisions.-Subtitle A amends the safeguards provisions of U.S. law to: (1) provide more rapid and effective relief to a U.S. industry in "critical circumstances" cases; (2) revise the period of relief available to an initial period of no more than four years, with possible extensions for a total period of relief of eight years; (3) establish guidelines for imposition of quantitative restraints (*8 QRs); (4) ban orderly marketing agreements; and (5) conform U.S. law to the procedural and due process requirements of the Safeguards Agreement.
Foreign trade barriers and unfair trade practices.-Subtitle B amends section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, "special 301," and "Super 301" authorities under U.S. domestic law to enforce U.S. rights against foreign violations of trade agreements and other unfair foreign trade practices to (1) conform to time limits under WTO dispute settlement procedures; and (2) clarify the scope of section 301 authority and its application to intellectual property rights protection and foreign anticompetitive practices. Subtitle B also codifies, through 1995, the provisions of the President"s March 3, 1994 Executive Order on "Super 301" by (1) requiring initiation of section 301 on foreign practices identified by September 30, 1995 as priorities for elimination to expand U.S. exports; and (2) requiring consultations with congressional committees on action with respect to foreign trade barriers identified in the annual National Trade Estimates report. Subtitle B also sets forth U.S. objectives on intellectual property and amplifies the bases for identifying priority foreign countries that lack adequate intellectual property protection.
Section 337 provisions.-Subtitle C amends section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which provides remedies against imports that infringe valid and enforceable U.S. intellectual property rights, to: (1) preserve the overall efficacy of the section 337 remedy; (2) delete statutory timeframes for completion of ITC investigations, but require that ITC set a target date for completing each investigation at the earliest practicable time; (3) minimize duplication of proceedings between the ITC and Federal district courts; and (4) limit the circumstances under which general exclusion orders may be granted.
Textiles and clothing.-Subtitle D sets forth requirements regarding the process for determining the list of products to be integrated into the GATT during the transition phaseout period of the Multifiber Arrangement; extends the President"s existing authority to regulate imports from countries not parties to a multilateral agreement on textile or agricultural products to cover imports from countries which are not parties to, or to whom the United States does not apply the WTO Agreement; establishes procedures regarding importation of products illegally transshipped; and requires the Secretary of the Treasury to issue regulations by July 1, 1995 establishing an "assembly" rule of origin for textile and apparel products as of July 1, 1996, with existing contracts entered into before July 20, 1994 "grandfathered" for goods imported before January 1, 1998.
Government procurement.-Subtitle E amends Title III of the Trade Agreements Act of 1979: (1) to conform to time limits and criteria for identifying, and imposing sanctions against, countries which maintain significant and persistent discrimination in their government procurement of U.S. goods or services; (2) to authorize the President to waive the prohibition on procurement of foreign products from non-signatory countries which apply transparent and competitive procurement procedures and maintain and enforce effective prohibitions on bribery and other corrupt practices in their procurement, and to waive the prohibition when supplies are unavailable; *9 and (3) to authorize restrictions to be waived on expanded procurement coverage under the U.S.- Israel Free Trade Agreement and under the Rural Electrification Act. [This Subtitle is in the jurisdiction of the Committee on Governmental Affairs.]
Product standards.-Subtitle F amends Title IV of the Trade Agreements Act of 1979 to clarify the ability of Federal agencies to issue standards-related measures and to determine the appropriate level of safety or protection of standards measures. [This Subtitle is in the jurisdiction of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.]

TITLE IV-AGRICULTURE-RELATED PROVISIONS

Title IV, Subtitle A (Agriculture), as well as the tariff modifications under section 111 in Title I, implement the Agreement on Agriculture.
Section 111 provides the general authority for (1) the conversion of U.S. quantitative import restrictions to tariff-rate quotas; and (2) the staged reduction of tariffs on imported agricultural products.
Part I (Market Access) of Subtitle A makes changes to Federal law to (1) reflect the conversion of quantitative restrictions, authorized under section 22 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 and the Meat Import Act of 1979, to tariff-rate quotas; (2) authorize the President to take certain actions in administering tariff-rate quotas; and (3) establish a special safeguard for agricultural imports pursuant to Article 5 of the Agreement on Agriculture and provide the President with the authority to administer this safeguard with the advice of the Secretary of Agriculture.
Part II (Exports) makes changes to export-related provisions in agricultural trade law to ensure that U.S. export programs operate consistently with U.S. commitments on export subsidies under the Agreement.[This Part is in the jurisdiction of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.]
Part III (Other Provisions) contains provisions that (1) provide authority for the President to establish tariff-rate quotas on certain tobacco and tobacco-product imports; (2) amend tobacco-related provisions in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1993; and (3) provide authority for the President to reduce or eliminate tariffs on cigar binder and filler, wrapper, or oriental tobacco. Part III also mandates reports on (1) the extent to which Canada is complying with its obligations under the Uruguay Round agreements and with its related obligations under the North American Free Trade Agreement with respect to dairy and poultry products; and (2) the effects of the Uruguay Round agreements on the Federal milk marketing order system.
Subtitle B (Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures) amends Federal law to bring programs administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture within the disciplines of the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. Subtitle C (Standards) provides for certain changes to Federal laws relating to agriculture products to implement the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. [This Subtitle is in the jurisdiction of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.]

TITLE V-INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

[This Title is in the jurisdiction of the Committee on the Judiciary.]
Title V implements the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). Title V consists of subtitles making changes in Federal law with respect to copyrights, trademarks, and patents.
Copyright provisions.-The copyright subtitle eliminates the sunset provision on rental rights in computer programs; protects against the unauthorized fixation in a sound recording or music video of a live performance or the communication to the public of the sounds of a live performance (the "antibootlegging" provision); and restores copyright protection to works already in the public domain in the United States but still under protection in a WTO Member that is the source of the work.
Trademark provisions.-The trademark subtitle amends the definition of "abandonment" to extend from two to three years the time of non-use before there is prima facie evidence of abandonment; and prohibits registration of a misleading geographic indication identifying wines or spirits.
Patent provisions.-The patent subtitle provides NAFTA-consistent treatment of inventive activity occurring in WTO Member countries for purposes of establishing the date of invention; amends the definition of infringing activity to include offers for sale and importation of a patented good; modifies the term of patent protection to 20 years from filing; and establishes a provisional patent application system and a right of internal priority for patent applications filed originally in the United States, as well as enabling a patent applicant to extend the term of patents that are delayed by interference proceedings, secrecy orders, or successful appeals to the Board of Patent Appeals or a Federal court.
Other areas of U.S. intellectual property law are unaffected by the Agreement.

TITLE VI-RELATED PROVISIONS

Title VI contains provisions extending expiring programs and amendments to certain customs laws related to the Uruguay Round agreements, as well as conforming amendments to various laws to reflect the implementation of the agreements.
Expiring programs.-Subtitle A extends the existing Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program under Title V of the Trade Act of 1974, which expired on September 30, 1994, for a 10-month period, until July 31, 1995. The production incentive certificate program for watch assemblers in the U.S. insular possessions, which expires on January 1, 1995, is extended for 12 years.
Customs provisions.-Subtitle B contains a technical correction to the Customs User Fee Account allowing Customs to reimburse its salaries and expenses appropriation for the enhanced Sunday and holiday customs inspector premium pay which was authorized in the Customs Overtime Pay Reform Act last year. Subtitle B also provides for an increase in the current customs merchandise processing fee rate for formal entries to .21 percent ad valorem and increases by one dollar the flat-rate fee on certain informal entries.

TITLE VII-REVENUE PROVISIONS

Title VII contains timing and compliance provisions, outlay reduction, and other provisions to assist in offsetting the projected cost of the implementing legislation.
The outlay reductions in Title VII derive from reforming the operation of the earned income tax credit and from reducing the interest rate that the Federal Government pays with respect to large corporate tax overpayments. In addition, the Treasury Department would be allowed to set investment yields for savings bonds according to market conditions, without the present-law constraint of a minimum investment yield of four percent.
Other provisions in Title VII are designed to improve taxpayer compliance and the timing of receipts to the Federal Government. For instance, taxpayers would be given the option to request voluntary withholding on certain Federal Government benefits and unemployment compensation. Certain income from foreign corporations would be subject to estimated tax throughout the year, like other types of income. Collections of certain excise taxes would be accelerated. A tax loophole would be closed by ensuring that partnerships cannot avoid gain to their partners by distributing marketable securities instead of cash.
Title VII also contains pension reforms that would increase the variable rate Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) insurance premium paid by underfunded plans. These pension reforms are also designed to improve funding in current underfunded defined benefit plans guaranteed by PBGC and to improve participant protections.

TITLE VIII-PIONEER PREFERENCES

Title VIII amends the Communications Act to require that the three companies that have been awarded "Pioneer Preferences" by the Federal Communications Commission pay the Government for their licenses to provide personal communications services. The provision requires these companies to pay an amount equal to 85 percent of the average amount that is paid for comparable licenses in the 20 largest markets in the United States, calculated on a per capita basis. The provision also codifies the Commission"s decision to designate these companies as "pioneers," and establishes a five-year schedule for the payments. [This Title is in the jurisdiction of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.