This is a question from Senator Grassley to U.S. Trade Rep. Lighthizer at the Senate Finance Committee Hearing on The President’s 2020 Trade Policy Agenda, from June 17, 2020:
In the USMCA implementing bill, Congress provided USTR a significant increase in funding. We must continue to assess the implications of how it might be effectively and efficiently utilized – including how it would work in conjunction with the existing trade enforcement trust fund.
I’d like to better understand how USTR intends to utilize this sizeable increase in funding.
Please provide a breakdown on how you intend to utilize the funding authorized by USMCA, and what funding has been allocated to date. Identify any new positions that will be created; any spending toward contractors, or any grants provided to any organizations. Please also provide a breakdown of any use of the trade enforcement fund for USMCA implementation.
Here is Lighthizer's response:
USTR plans to hire four new attorneys for USMCA labor enforcement and four new attorneys for USMCA environment enforcement. USTR is actively soliciting applications specifically for the new USMCA environment and labor trade attorney positions on the USTR website, internet job sites, and USAJOBS. The Office of General Counsel (OGC) is in the process of interviewing and hiring, and the first new labor enforcement attorney will start in August. In the interim, OGC has assigned two attorneys (one senior and one junior) for USMCA labor enforcement and two attorneys (one senior and one junior) for USMCA environment enforcement.
Actual spending to date on funding authorized by USMCA supplemental appropriations has been limited due to the impact of the pandemic. For example, USTR has not been able to travel to Mexico City to establish the logistics for the USMCA contingent and State Department has therefore not determined USTR’s share of the various support costs. USTR will soon obligate approximately $2.2 million to reimburse the detailees from the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Fish and Wildlife Service through FY 2023. Three USMCA environment trade policy analysts and one labor trade policy analyst are now on board, with two labor trade policy analysts in the pipeline. As these new hires joined USTR within just the last few weeks, personnel costs are minimal to date.
The hiring of all these new people is a good indication that enforcement actions really are coming.
