National Textile Association Urges Congress to Reject the New Partnership for Development Act of 2007
On October 21, 2007, at the 153rd Annual Meeting of the National Textile Association in Greensboro, North Carolina, the officers and directors of the National Textile Association, by unanimous vote, stated the Association’s opposition to the New Partnership for Development Act of 2007 and urged Congress to reject this flawed legislation by adopting the following resolution:
Whereas legislation has been introduced in the United States House of Representatives entitled the New Partnership for Development Act of 2007;
Whereas this legislation will grant nearly $1 billion in annual U.S. duty relief to exporters of textile and apparel products to the United States;
Whereas some of the current largest exporters of textiles and apparel products to the U.S. will be granted duty relief under this legislation;
Whereas the duty relief granted under this legislation will come at the expense of producers of textile and apparel products in the U.S. and their nearly 600,000 workers still employed in these industries in the U.S.; and
Whereas producers of textile and apparel products in the Caribbean region who purchase the majority of U.S. textile exports will also be negatively impacted;
Therefore be it resolved:
The Board of Government of the National Textile Association opposes the New Partnership for Development Act of 2007 and encourages Congress to reject this flawed legislation.
National Textile Association Headline Animator
Sunday, October 21, 2007
National Textile Association Urges Congress to Reject the New Partnership for Development Act of 2007
Friday, October 5, 2007
Massive Seizure by Italian Revenue Police
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Dean Brookstein Talks to Federal Panel About Imported Clothing Safety
Oct 2 2007
David Brookstein, dean of the School of Engineering and Textiles, appeared before a federal panel yesterday to talk about the importance of ensuring the safety of imported apparel and how the University’s newly announced Institute for Textile and Apparel Product Safety (ITAPS) can help meet that need.
During a day-long hearing of the federal Interagency Working Group on Import Safety, Dean Brookstein told the group that the Institute “will conduct research to determine if potentially toxic chemicals are present in imported clothing, identify which toxic chemicals and agents are being used and the extent of their use and help establish protocols for testing and evaluating imported apparel items.”
Established in July by President Bush to improve the safety of imported products, the interagency working group’s charge comes on the heels of recent highly-publicized incidents involving Chinese-made toys and toothpaste found to have high levels of chemicals and toxins.
And in June, the American Apparel and Footwear Association released a Restricted Substances List to provide apparel and footwear companies with information on regulations and laws that restrict or ban chemicals and substances in finished home textile, apparel and footwear products around the world.
Thus, “with concerns growing about the safety of imported toys and toiletries coming into this country, Philadelphia University recognized that imported textile and apparel items might also contain various levels of toxic chemicals,” Dean Brookstein said at the Washington, D.C., meeting. “As one of the nation’s leading textiles schools, we feel it is important to use our expertise to investigate the possibility of unsafe exposure to potentially toxic textile chemicals and dyes.”
For the year that ended July 31, more than $93 billion in textiles and apparel were imported to the United States from around the globe, according to data from the Office of Textiles and Apparel of the U.S. Department of Commerce. That year, China accounted for more than 32 percent of all imported textiles and apparel.
