Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group

Ways and Means releases tariff bill database

Last week, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade released a <a Last week, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade released a new resource page on miscellaneous tariff bills, which are measures introduced by members of Congress that cut taxes on specific imported goods saving money for a limited number of beneficiaries (usually just one). The subcommittee made a very handy database of these bills (they call it the MTB Matrix), showing who proposed each bill, who will benefit from it, how much money it will cost taxpayers, and whether or not lobbyists pushed the tariff break (a code sheet explaining the data, including its sources, is here). It's an incredible resource (and yes, it is similar to Real Time's 2008 tariff database; the difference is that the Trade Subcommittee's staff did the heavy lifting of putting this together, so the many man hours we invested in putting our database together in 2008 can be spent actually analyzing the data this time around).

Duty suspended, contributions tendered

Dave Maass reports on the latest round of tariff suspensions in San Diego City Beat, doing a nice job of following the money between beneficiaries of these measures that reduce taxes for a small number of beneficiaries (usually one) and the members of Congress who propose them.

$4.5 billion-dollar tariff break back

Tariff Action Coalition formed

World Bank says protection on the rise

Grassley seeks lobbyist disclosure for tariff bills

New database brings transparency to tariff bills

Though they likely won't become law in 2008, more than 800 bills that were introduced by 116 members of the House, that would cut taxes on imports by an estimated $1.1 billion, and that were specifically requested by 120 companies and organizations that would benefit from them, are still pending in the 110th Congress. The bills reduce or eliminate tariffs on everything from unicycles to storage batteries for hybrid cars, from hair fibers of the rare vicua to chemicals for making rodent poison. Of the named beneficiaries, 65 hired in-house or outside lobbyists that listed specific bills or tariff duty suspensions as issues they sought to influence, an analysis of records from the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC), and the Senate Office of Public Records shows.