Washington Insider-- Friday

By DTN's Washington Insider

Here's a quick monitor of Washington farm and trade policy issues from DTN's well-placed observer.

Hatch Calls for President to Assist in Congressional Approval of TPA

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, says he had a conversation with President Obama this week in which Hatch asked for the president's help in moving a Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) bill through the legislative process.

Hatch and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., favor a TPA bill that does not diverge significantly from previous grants of fast-track authority. Hatch said that TPA is essential for ongoing negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreements because without it, U.S. trading partners will not put their best offers on the table, as "they will have no guarantees that the agreement they sign will be the same one Congress will vote on in the end."

Hatch called renewing TPA his top trade priority for this Congress and recommended that the next TPA bill not deviate too far from the basic TPA structure that was in place for every major U.S. trade agreement over the last four decades.

Currently, it appears unlikely that the president will have a great deal of success in convincing members of his own party to support either TPA or the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. A similar challenge is likely to present itself to Hatch and McConnell, whose Republican conference is reported to be drifting away from its traditional support of U.S. trade agreements.

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President Questions Motivation of Congressional Climate Change Deniers

President Obama this week called out members of Congress who deny climate change, calling at least some of them "shills" for oil and fossil fuel companies. He also said it is "disturbing" that someone who denies climate change runs the Senate environment committee. Obama was referring to Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.

The president expressed optimism that Republicans would "outgrow" their reluctance to address the problem, pointing out that younger generations support action. However, Obama acknowledged that "The hardest thing to do in politics and government is to make sacrifices now for a long-term payoff."

With the current balance of power what it is in Congress, it is unlikely over the next 21 months that the country will be asked "to make sacrifices now for a long-term payoff" when it comes to climate change.

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Washington Insider: Fight Over Geographic Indicators

You may think, as many do, that the term GI refers to U.S. soldiers in World War II, or later — and, you would be right. However, it also refers to a kind of brand — a geographical indicator — that is common and highly protected in European Union countries.

The United States protects GIs through its trademark system. It also backs due process protections, such as the right to object to an application and the right to cancel a granted GI. The EU uses a broader approach and by now has the blessing of the World Trade Organization in defining GIs as identifying a good "as originating in a region or locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographic origin."

The problem, of course, is the protectionist nature of many GIs which prevents competition from producers from other regions no matter how good their products may be.

Critics of broad EU geographical indication protection for names such as feta and parmesan argue that this hampers market access for U.S. products and confuses consumers. For example, parmesan and feta are generic terms in the United States and refer to ingredients and the manufacturing process used.

Increasingly, protection for GIs has been a flash point in negotiations toward the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the United States and the EU. Last year, 177 House members urged the administration's top trade and agriculture officials to oppose EU efforts to restrict the use of common food names for dairy products in the TTIP negotiations. Congressional Dairy Farmer Caucus co-chairs Reps. Reid Ribble, R-Wis., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., spearheaded that message to the administration. Paul Bleiberg, deputy chief of staff for Ribble, said that how successfully the GI protection issue is resolved could be critical in determining congressional support for any eventual deal.

The GI issue is not a parochial concern, he said. "Consumers in every single state and every single congressional district have the potential to be impacted by this depending on the outcome of the process," he said. The numbers speak for themselves, Bleiberg said, in a reference to the 177 members who signed the letter.

Giulio Menato, counselor for agricultural affairs of the EU TTIP delegation, said that TTIP negotiators must find a pragmatic solution in line with WTO rules, just as the EU and the United States reached agreement on the use of GIs related to wine. He pointed to recent EU agreements with Canada and other countries on GI protection as evidence that the issue could be readily solved.

GI protection advocates argue that protection is especially important, given the worldwide trend of increasing consumer interest in the origin of food products, Menato said. The EU recognizes that names that have become generic are not entitled to GI protection, he argued — although critics suggest that such challenges were few and difficult to win.

Shawna Morris, spokesperson for the Consortium for Common Food Names, said that the issue is being incorrectly presented. Her organization is not opposed to the use of geographical indications, she says, but it does oppose efforts to monopolize common names that have become part of the public domain. The EU's free trade agreements and its list of GIs already have curbed market access for both U.S. and other producers, she said.

The issue tends to be more difficult and controversial than many observers admit, experts say. For many EU and some U.S. products, GIs have become extremely valuable brands and their protection has strong political support. The result is likely to be a very long list of GIs that could well lock U.S. producers out of important markets.

In general, the EU has gone to great lengths to simply declare issues it really does not want to negotiate "off the table," as it has its "precautionary principle" that allows it to avoid science-based rules for bans on genetically modified crops, animal welfare rules and other issues. One result is continuing skepticism among U.S. observers regarding how willing the EU is to actually reduce its often high trade barriers in return better access to U.S. markets.

Clearly producers should watch carefully how the GI issue is approached and how equitable proposed solutions really are, Washington Insider believes.

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(GH/CZ)

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