Lawmakers warn on reaction to Dubai deal

[cal04]

U.S. lawmakers from both parties warned on Thursday against overreacting to a failed effort by a Dubai company to purchase U.S. port terminals, saying laws that discourage foreign investment in the United States could result.
If Congress makes it too onerous to invest in this country, why would anyone in their right mind do business here?" said Mike Oxley, chairman of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. "Labor is cheap in China, resources are cheap in South America, markets are huge in Europe," the Ohio Republican told a subcommittee hearing on overhauling the way the U.S. government reviews foreign acquisitions.

House lawmakers are working on legislation to correct flaws in the way foreign takeovers are examined for national security concerns, following the recent uproar over the Bush administration's approval of the state-owned Dubai company's purchase of terminal operations in six U.S. ports. The furor over the acquisition caused the Dubai company to announce last month that it would drop the purchase. The White House is expected to decide this week whether to approve another Dubai-owned company's $1.24 billion plan to buy Doncasters, a British engineering company with U.S. plants that supply military parts to the
Pentagon.

The inter-agency Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) sent its confidential recommendation on the Dubai takeover of Doncasters to Bush on April 13. The Senate Banking Committee already has produced a bill to make the CFIUS rules on reviews of foreign takeovers more stringent. Rep. Roy Blunt (news, bio, voting record), a Missouri Republican, said on Thursday he would produce a House bill by the end of May. But comments at the subcommittee hearing, chaired by Ohio Republican Deborah Pryce, suggested the House mood favored something more moderate than the Senate version, which was watered down after protests from the business community.

Oxley said U.S. investment in other countries was at stake, too, and asked members to think about what would happen if China, for example, shut out U.S. companies. "Already, with the talk of making investment here more difficult, the parliaments in Russia, India, Mexico and elsewhere have begun debating new retaliatory moves," he said.
The subcommittee's ranking Democrat, Barney Frank of Massachusetts, said drastic change was not needed to laws on CFIUS. "I do think people on my side have to be aware of the danger that we will overreact every time this (Bush) administration messes something up," Frank said. One of lawmakers' complaints about the Dubai ports deal is that no one in Congress was notified by the White House. Frank said that did not mean legislation should allow a long list of lawmakers to be notified of takeover reviews.


more
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060427/pl_nm/security_ports_congress_dc

[acmavm]

1. These guys need to worry less about foreign investment in this country

and worry a lot more about how they can make it so Americans can again invest in their country.

[ninkasi]

3. Exactly!

Given the fact that the Bush administration has been whipping people into a frenzy about "Islamic Terrists", and spying on us, why is anyone surprised that there would be an outcry against a company from the UAE would be in charge of our ports? When it suits their needs, they want Americans afraid of Muslims, but when money is involved, the same Muslims are suddenly ok.

No wonder they were keeping this deal hidden until the last minute. Too many people have had "9-11 changed everything" burned into their minds to expect these same people to have warm thoughts about a Mideast company owning such vital facilities. Sure...turn the ports over to the same people the government spies on when they call people here in the U.S.

[TomInTib]

2. I want to know just WHO IS running those ports today.

They're not running themselves.

I do not believe for one minute that the DPW deal is dead.