http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/21/AR2005122102074.html?sub=ARA festering trade dispute between the United States and several major trading partners appears set to subside after the Senate voted yesterday to repeal an anti-dumping law that was ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization.
The Senate action, which came as part of a broader budget bill that passed with Vice President Cheney's tie-breaking vote, would phase out the Byrd amendment, a five-year-old measure especially popular with lawmakers from industrial states heavily affected by foreign competition. The House has already voted to repeal the amendment, named for Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), in nearly identical legislation.
According to the Byrd amendment, whenever the government finds U.S. companies to be disadvantaged by the dumping of imported goods at unfairly low prices, the duties collected on those goods can go to the companies rather than to the Treasury