Washington Insider - Friday
Here's a quick monitor of Washington farm and trade policy issues from DTN's well-placed observer.
Congress GoneDefying its stereotype of being hopelessly gridlocked, the House and Senate this week managed to approve a stop-gap government funding bill on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, thus allowing members to leave town for the more serious business of campaigning for another term in office.
The continuing resolution that will keep the government funded until mid-December was approved by large majorities in both chambers. However, when Congress returns to Washington Nov. 12 to begin a post-election lame duck session, the process is likely to be more contentious when it comes to approving either stand-alone appropriations bills or, more likely, an omnibus spending package comprising multiple bills.
Just how contentious will depend in large part upon how the party division in the two houses of Congress change as a result of the November elections. It also will depend upon whether members prefer to simply approve another CR with a deadline of March or April 2015, and then take off for the rest of the year, leaving fiscal 2015 spending decisions for the next Congress.
Senate Panel Approves STB Reauthorization Bill
Before recessing, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee approved a bill reauthorizing the Surface Transportation Board and reforming several of the board's standard operating procedures. The measure, sponsored by committee chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., is intended to make the STB more efficient, improve its investigative authority and modify rate review timelines, among other goals.
In the lead-up to voting, panel members were highly critical of delays and other shortcomings of railroad services last spring and this summer, and recommended that federal regulators be given greater authority over railroads' activities.
Several committee members expressed concern with specific portions of the bill, but were convinced to approve the overall measure with the assurance that further changes would be considered in the coming months.
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The Senate is scheduled to return to Washington Nov. 12, although it is not expected to resume floor action on any legislation until the following week. If the Rockefeller-Thune bill is not adopted by the end of the year, it likely will be re-introduced in the next Congress minus Sen. Rockefeller, who is retiring at the end of December.
Washington Insider: India Stonewalls on Trade Stockpile Rule
Observers note that in a step that has become all to common, India once again, has hardened its stance and created a storm over the next steps to be taken towards a Doha Round free trade agreement. This adds a deepening pessimism over the prospects for a deal eventually being done, especially in the near future.
Earlier this week, at an informal meeting of the World Trade Organization's Committee on Agriculture, India blocked progress on the question of public stockholding for food security.
It claims that developing countries seeking to buy and build food stocks to insure food availability for its poorest people otherwise may be entangled by WTO rules which were designed to prevent excessive market intervention by rich countries in times of low commodity prices.
This stockholding issue had been one of several points over which a provisional solution had been negotiated at last December's WTO Ministerial in Bali.
No more. India now is refusing to accept that approach on a separate issue, namely trade facilitation (i.e. the easing of red tape for cross-border trade) until a permanent solution is found for the currently "interim" decision on public stockholding for food security in developing countries. This, of course, raises concerns about whether such a solution is possible.
India vetoed the ratification of the trade facilitation deal stipulated at Bali, accusing its trade partners of not taking seriously enough its concerns over rules relating to food security. The failure to move forward on the issue of trade facilitation has brought the limited negotiating momentum developed during the Bali talks to a halt.
Instead, India reiterated its concerns that the WTO needed to act speedily to find a permanent solution on the food stockholding issue.
Observers note that India's tactics are especially offensive to trading partners, and are leading to angry responses and charges that New Delhi has "ruptured trust" by holding the process ransom over the issue, and possibly by endangering the implementation of the whole Bali package.
The agreement reached in Bali calls for a temporary moratorium on any challenges under the WTO dispute settlement procedure against developing countries who exceed their domestic support "ceilings" in the course of food purchases made as part as poverty alleviation programs. A permanent solution on stockholding was promised by the time of the next WTO Ministerial meeting in 2017 — but India is insisting that discussions on that topic get under way immediately.
Chairperson of the WTO Agriculture Committee, Miriam Beatriz Chaves of Argentina, concluded that the link between trade facilitation and public stockholding could be settled only in a broader body such as the Trade Negotiations Committee. Still, ever-hopeful WTO officials continue to look for a way forward on these procedural issues in various meetings over the coming weeks.
India has proved to be an increasingly difficult partner in the struggling Doha talks in recent years, insisting regularly on special treatment in almost every area under discussion on the grounds of its large numbers of poor farmers. It has made determined efforts to preserve its right to intervene in markets at will, while using WTO rules to reduce others' competitive access to India's large markets.
By now, there is little hope that the moribund Doha Round can reach any kind of an ambitious conclusion that will significantly reduce trade protections and open new markets. Still, efforts are continuing in the hope that even modest improvements in trade efficiency and domestic supports may be accomplished.
Increasingly, however, India's willingness to invoke its "special developing country status" makes any progress at all difficult and almost endlessly time consuming — and, may play an important role in eventually killing off the Round altogether, Washington Insider believes.
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