WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A second U.S. Senate committee is nearing a vote on a bill aimed at giving the U.S. Treasury Department new tools to pressure China to raise the value of its currency, congressional aides said on Tuesday.
The Senate Banking Committee will meet on Wednesday morning to consider the legislation drafted by Chairman Chris Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, and Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the panel.
The committee vote is scheduled the same day as U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will be meeting top Chinese officials in Beijing on the currency issue. Last week, the Senate Finance Committee voted 20-1 to give the U.S. government new tools to pressure countries with "fundamentally misaligned currencies."
Those include U.S. anti-dumping duties if countries refuse to reform their currency policies after being formally cited by the United States in a new semiannual report replacing an old one requiring the Treasury Department to identify countries that are manipulating their currency for a trade advantage.
The Banking and Finance committees have sparred recently over which panel has jurisdiction for currency legislation.
The Dodd-Shelby bill, as described by the senators last month, would make it harder for the Treasury Department to avoid labeling China a currency manipulator, rather than abandon that designation as the Finance Committee bill does.
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