NAFTA bill killed in the Senate
Lawmakers voted last week to recall a bill – which would have facilitated construction of a NAFTA super corridor through Oklahoma - from the governor’s desk to revise and clarify the measure.
“A few people are concerned about potential unintended consequences of this legislation, so we chose to simply recall Senate Bill 1507 and clean up the language,” said state Rep. Joe Dorman, a Rush Springs Democrat who carried the bill in the Oklahoma House of Representatives.
Senate Bill 1507 dealt with two issues - allowing the Office of State Finance to transfer budget information electronically to the Oklahoma House of Representatives, and amending state law related to Foreign Trade Zones (FTZ) in Oklahoma.
The FTZ language would have eliminated a cap on the amount of time an FTZ could exist and was included to benefit an FTZ near Norman.
However, Dorman said some critics feared the FTZ language in the legislation was tied to efforts to create a NAFTA super corridor running from Mexico to Canada that would encourage the use of eminent domain powers to seize property for the proposed superhighway.
“That was never my intent,” Dorman said. “I’ve had staff attorneys review the legislation and they don’t think there’s much of a problem, but they say the language is a little vague. Obviously, I don’t want to put anything vague into state law that courts could misinterpret. Rather than have a question hanging out there, I decided it was easier to recall the bill and revise it.”
Foreign Trade Zones provide special benefits to U.S. plants engaged in international trade-related activities, including relief from inverted tariffs, duty exemption on re-exports, duty elimination on waste, scrap, and yield loss, and duty deferral.