WASHINGTON-The House Judiciary Committee, amid legislation to shift satellite export licensing from the Commerce Department to the State Department and new signs that China plans to curtail wireless telecom trade, last week downplayed the prospect of including alleged technology transfers in any impeachment inquiry against President Clinton.
The committee, chaired by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), is expected to make a recommendation on impeachment early next week and the House will vote whether to go forward by Oct. 9, when Congress adjourns for midterm elections.
The possibility of expanding an impeachment inquiry to include alleged technology transfers to China was raised indirectly early last week in a meeting among House GOP leaders, according to published reports.
The Justice Department is investigating whether Loral Corp. and Hughes Corp. gave sensitive information to Communist China, which launched rockets with U.S. satellites aboard.
As part of that probe, the department also is examining whether Loral Chairman Bernard Schwartz’s $630,000 contribution to Democrats in 1996 and then-Hughes chairman E. Michael Armstrong’s aggressive lobbying of the Clinton administration influenced U.S.-Sino trade policy.
In addition, Justice is probing whether Boeing Co. improperly shared technical data with Russian and Ukrainian partners on SeaLaunch, a venture to send communications satellite-carrying rockets into space.
Hyde and Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), chairman of the select committee investigating alleged technology transfers to China, distanced themselves from news stories that a strategy by House Speaker Next Gingrich (R-Ga.) to broaden to the expected impeachment inquiry beyond the Clinton-Lewinsky affair was in play.
“The implication of the … article that the select committee anticipates a referral to the Judiciary Committee, or that it has found evidence of impeachable offenses, is false. Likewise, the alleged report to the speaker of the House concerning impeachable offenses did not occur,” Cox and Norman Dick (D-Wash.), ranking Democrat on the select committee, said in a joint statement. The two lawmakers said the China technology transfer probe will be completed by the House early next year.
Clayton Mowry, president of the Satellite Industry Association, predicted the shift of satellite export licensing from Commerce to State could wreak havoc for U.S. companies like Motorola Inc., Loral and Hughes Electronics Inc. that are building and deploying mobile satellite systems. Moreover, Mowry said the licensing shift amounts to a tax increase because of differences in how Commerce and State categorize exports.
The House last week approved the Defense Department authorization bill provision on satellite exports, effectively repealing a 1996 executive order President Clinton signed that moved satellite export licensing from the more cautious State Department to the trade-driven Commerce Department. The Senate will take up the measure next.
Defense Secretary William Cohen, in a July 16 letter to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), threatened to push to veto the bill if it includes the satellite export licensing change.
However, Clinton’s diminished clout with the GOP-controlled Congress could limit his veto leverage.
The technology transfer controversy sparked Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Commerce subcommittee on science, technology and space, to call for the United States to make its launch industry more attractive to domestic and foreign firms.
Charlene Barshefsky, the U.S. trade representative, told reporters last week China’s plans to ban U.S.-Sino telecom joint ventures would not help China’s chances for membership in the World Trade Organization.
If China goes forward with its planned ban on joint ventures, reportedly $1.4 billion in 23 Global System for Mobile communications projects will be put in jeopardy. U.S.-based Code Division Multiple Access technology has had problems cracking the Chinese market at all.
On a related front, Barshefsky reiterated the administration will take a hard line with the European Union if it determines that U.S. wireless manufacturers effectively are locked out of the third-generation mobile phone market.
“We are looking at a range of options if the EU adopts, as a final matter, a discriminatory standard. And one of the options, of course, is taking the EU to the WTO,” said Barshefsky.
Congress was scheduled late Friday to vote down fast-track trade legislation. Meanwhile, the House passed legislation to liberalize visa policy so U.S. high-tech firms can recruit more high-skilled foreign workers.
The House Commerce Committee, for its part, passed a bill to make U.S. firms more competitive abroad by cracking down on bribery in foreign commerce.
