Washington, D.C.-Sixth District Congressman Frank Lucas joined his colleagues in passing H.R. 4647, the "Selective Agricultural Embargoes Act" in the U.S. House of Representatives late last night. This legislation would develop a system for Congress to keep a president in check regarding the use of unilateral agriculture commodity trade embargoes on other countries.
"I am very supportive of this legislation and see it as the first step toward remedying a major thorn in the side of U.S. agriculture and the U.S. economy as a whole," Lucas said. "When you get down to the nitty-gritty, the facts are that if the U.S. is not the leading supplier of agricultural and other exports in the world, someone else will be, and we can no longer use U.S. agriculture as a political tool for making foreign policy."
H.R. 4647 would require the approval of both Houses of Congress if the president decides to impose an agriculture-specific embargo on a foreign country. The president would have to report to Congress within five days after taking action to restrict the exportation of any agricultural commodity.
Congress would be required to enact a joint resolution, within 100 days of receiving the president's report, approving or disapproving the embargo. If the embargo is approved, it will terminate on a date chosen by the president or one year after enactment of the joint resolution, whichever is sooner. If the embargo is disapproved, it will terminate after the 100-day period.
The bill includes an exemption to allow an embargo to remain in effect during any period that the United States is in a congressionally-declared war or during a national emergency. Additionally, the act would be applicable only in the case that the agriculture embargo is not part of an embargo of all exports to a country.
Since 1992, total exports have accounted for more than one-third of U.S. economic growth. The contributions of agricultural exports, specifically, were just over $57 billion in 1997 and in the past several years are the only U.S. commodities that have provided a positive return to the United States' balance of trade. Agricultural sales abroad account for nearly 10 percent of total merchandise exports.
"We cannot continue to provide American consumers with the most economical food supply in the world or maintain a positive return to the national trade balance if U.S. agriculture does not have access to world markets to maintain our economic base," Lucas said.
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