SIMP in Build Back Better Bill, Tobacco Drawback Limitation Out
The social spending and climate response bill known as Build Back Better has been scaled back to satisfy concerns of two Senate moderate Democrats, and as a result, many of the original pay-fors are gone, including a limitation on tobacco drawback and a plan to tax the nicotine in vaping cartridges.
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But importers could still be affected by several provisions of the 1,600-page bill.
The bill would provide an additional $2 million to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for implementing the Seafood Import Monitoring Program. However, the legislative text is not clear on whether that money is to expand SIMP to apply to all seafood products. The previous version of the bill said that explicitly; this version preserves the additional spending but does not say how SIMP is to be implemented.
The bill provides $600 million for grants, available through Sept. 20, 2026, distributed by the Maritime Administration to support supply chain resilience, reduction in port congestion and the development of offshore wind. This is down from $2.5 billion in the original draft of the bill, but that amount was also to pay for environmental remediation or projects to reduce the impact of ports on the environment. The grants cannot be disbursed after Sept. 30, 2031.
The bill offers $5 billion in spending on "manufacturing supply chain resilience," though there is little detail on how that money will be spent. In the original bill, $10 billion was planned. The Commerce Department can spend the money on mapping and monitoring manufacturing supply chains; supporting the establishment of voluntary standards and best practices; and "identifying, accelerating, promoting, demonstrating and deploying technological advances for manufacturing supply chains" and providing grants, loans or loan guarantees " to maintain and improve manufacturing supply chain resiliency."
However, the bill is likely to continue to change. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., whose committee has jurisdiction over both tax and healthcare provisions, told reporters in a hallway interview: "The deal isn't done until the Senate acts."