American Jobs Creation Act approved by Congress; awaits President's signature

摘要

Before taking a pre-election recess, both the Senate and House approved a conference report to accompany the final version of H.R. 4520, the "American Jobs Creation Act of 2004," clearing the measure for signature by President Bush. The House vote was 280-141; the Senate approved the bill by a vote of 69-17 NMA supported the measure, which repeals the existing law that resulted in a decision by the World Trade Organization against the U.S., allowing the European Union (EU) to impose tariffs on American exports to EU countries. In its place, the legislation creates a new corporate tax deduction for income from domestic manufacturing operations that includes extraction, as sought by NMA. Despite NMA's diligent efforts, House conferees rejected several attempts to add clean coal tax provisions in the pending energy bill and the Senate version of H.R. 4520 to the final package, including those relating to clean coal technology incentives. The final version also does not contain the precious metals capital gains reduction which passed the Senate. NMA will continue to pursue these initiatives.