The Biden administration should sanction Russian weapons manufacturer JSC Alabuga, which is receiving help from Iran to produce its own version of Iran’s Shahed-136 kamikaze drone, known as the Geran-2, on Russian soil, according to Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.

Seventeen senators, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are asking the U.S. trade representative to reach "an expedited agreement with the European Union" so that tariffs don't return on exported whiskey Jan. 1. That tariff would be 50% under the schedule the EU imposed as retaliation for the Section 232 tariffs on European steel and aluminum exports.

If a bill just introduced becomes law, importers of fossil fuels, refined petroleum products, petrochemicals, fertilizer, hydrogen, adipic acid, cement, iron and steel, aluminum, glass, pulp, paper, lime and gypsum products and ethanol would have to pay a duty at the border based on the carbon intensity of either the industry in the home country, the product, if a specific petition was made, or an economywide carbon intensity measure, if no reliable data is available by industry.

A bill that would ban the import or export of marine species that pose "a substantial risk of harm to the sustainability of such species or the coral reef ecosystem of such species," or of species that have poor survivorship in transport or captivity, was introduced by Reps. Ed Case, D-Hawaii, and Jared Huffman, D-Calif.

Three days after Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo suggested her Bureau of Industry and Security needs more funding to handle a surge in export licensing requests (see 2312040041), three key House Republicans said on Dec. 5 that BIS must strengthen its export controls before they will support a budget increase for the agency.

The Bureau of Industry and Security’s recent 90-day pause in issuing commercial firearms export licenses will financially harm companies, especially small ones, that rely on foreign sales for income, according to a letter five Republican members of the House Small Business Committee sent to BIS.

Four Republican senators have called on the Commerce Department to reverse its decision to remove China’s Institute of Forensic Science from the Entity List, saying the easing of trade sanctions on the scientific lab was premature.

A dozen House Democrats, led by Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., recently introduced a bill that asks the Biden administration to coordinate with Mexico to increase outbound inspections by CBP on the land border with Mexico, with the aim of reducing the number of guns smuggled from the U.S. to Mexico.

More than 60 House members, led by senior Ways and Means Committee Democrat Rep. Mike Thompson of California and Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to negotiate an end to China's retaliatory tariffs on American wine, and to negotiate lower tariffs in India and Vietnam, where American wine faces 150% and 50% tariffs, respectively.

A House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy and Regulatory Affairs hearing focused on the need for more domestic mining of critical minerals, but administration witnesses noted that imports -- and subsidizing processing of domestically mined minerals -- are just as essential to uninterrupted supply.