In the coming year, the Chamber will proactively advance a number of pro-growth proposals, launch a  vigorous defense against anti-business proposals, and pursue far-reaching competitive reforms that extend well beyond the halls of Congress. Below is a brief overview of the Chamber's policy priorities:

Health Care

The Chamber will lead the fight to expand access to affordable health care for small businesses and individuals. Its priorities include seeking additional improvements to health savings accounts and modification of the existing use-it-or-lose-it rule for health care flexible spending accounts. It will also push for the deductibility of health care premiums for individuals and the self-employed.

Further, the Chamber will work to curb escalating medical liability-a significant contributor to rising health care costs-by supporting efforts to cap punitive and noneconomic damages.

The Chamber will fight proposals to allow the government to negotiate Medicare prescription drug prices directly with the pharmaceutical manufacturers. Direct government purchase would have a negligible effect on federal spending, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Taxes

The Chamber will push for legislation that ensures faster cost recovery of capital investment, repeals or substantially reforms the alternative minimum tax (AMT), reduces the capital gains tax and the tax on dividend income, enacts enhanced tax-deferred savings vehicles, and repeals the tax withholding requirement on all government payments. The Chamber will also strive to make permanent the Research and Experimentation, the Work Opportunity, and the Welfare-to-Work Tax credits. Finally, it will advance simplification of, and ease of compliance with, the Internal Revenue Code and work to stop new or increased taxes on businesses.

Legal Reform

Working with its affiliate, the Institute for Legal Reform (ILR), the Chamber will continue to support the Small Business Liability Reform Act, which would provide caps on punitive damage awards and establish proportional liability for small businesses. It will also push for a comprehensive and rational solution to the burgeoning asbestos-related liability crisis and an end to fraudulent medical screenings designed solely to generate mass tort claimants. The Chamber will target abusive discovery "fishing expeditions" intended to compel unwarranted settlements.

At the state level, ILR will support efforts to improve the legal climate in California, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, West Virginia, and Wisconsin and protect past legislative gains in Georgia, Missouri, and Ohio from expected assaults from the plaintiffs' bar.

ILR will continue to spotlight the actions of some activist state attorneys general, gathering data and rating them on fairness and ethical conduct in civil investigations and litigation.

Energy

To help the nation meet its growing energy demand, the Chamber will urge Congress to authorize environmentally friendly exploration for oil and natural gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in portions of the Outer Continental Shelf now closed to drilling.

The Chamber will work to ensure that regulation of air emissions is based on sound science and that emissions controls focus on performance and market-based programs rather than on command-and-control mandates. It will also urge Congress to carefully review the climate change issue before taking further action to ensure that any climate change policies do not place unreasonable burdens on businesses and the economy.

Labor

The Chamber will seek to clarify Family and Medical Leave Act regulations to ease employer compliance and will oppose efforts to expand the legislation to apply to more companies or mandate that employee leave be paid.

Moreover, the Chamber will oppose reauthorization of ergonomics regulations and all other efforts to revise the Occupational Safety and Health Act in ways that do not enhance an employer's ability to provide a safe workplace.

The Chamber will seek to block efforts giving labor unions the authority to avoid secret ballot elections and allowing them to engage in high-pressure organizing tactics. It will also work to protect recent pro-business decisions by the National Labor Relations Board, including its definition of supervisory status.

The Chamber will oppose an increase in the federal minimum wage but may support provisions to soften the impact on small businesses if an increase appears likely.

In addition, the Chamber will aggressively pursue technical corrections and regulatory guidance for last year's pension reform bill and will work to ensure that pension accounting and deferred compensation regulations are not overly burdensome.

Regulations

The Chamber will continue to focus on reducing government paperwork burdens, seeking government reimbursement of small business legal costs when businesses successfully challenge regulatory action in court, encouraging federal agencies to conduct periodic reviews of existing regulations, and ensuring that the federal regulatory process is cost effective and flexible.

The Chamber is dedicated to improving federal contracting opportunities for small businesses as well as protecting small startup companies from being "regulated" out of business through overly complex and onerous regulatory compliance requirements.

Education and Workforce Development

The Chamber will pursue strategic education and workforce development policies and programs. It will lead a coalition of businesses to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, the 2002 law that increases accountability for student performance. Moreover, the Chamber will lobby for reauthorization of the Higher Education Act and the Workforce Investment Act, funding for teacher improvement programs, and passage of the president's American Competitiveness Initiative to increase the number of U.S. engineers and scientists. Another coalition of which the Chamber is a member, Tapping America's Potential, will work to double the number of U.S. graduates in science, technology, engineering, and math by 2015.

In late February, the Chamber will issue a report card that assesses each state's K-12 education system and makes recommendations for change.

Immigration Reform

The Chamber will continue to call for comprehensive immigration reform that protects national security, creates secure and efficient legal channels for workers to come to the United States and perform jobs to keep our economy growing, and allows undocumented workers currently here to participate in a program that leads to permanent residency.

The Chamber will push for a permanent fix to outdated and counterproductive visa and green card programs for highly skilled workers. The backlog of permanent visas or green cards continues to force tens of thousands of valued employees- including scientists, teachers, engineers, and medical professionals-into legal and professional limbo for years.

Transportation and Infrastructure

Through the Americans for Transportation Mobility coalition, the Chamber will work to ensure that the government lives up to the highway and transit funding commitments made in the 2005 highway reauthorization bill. 

As part of its work to to ensure passage of a multiyear Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill, the Chamber will fight for provisions that reduce the burden of unjustified taxes, fees, and regulations on airlines; dramatically expand air traffic control and airport capacity; and help airlines and the aviation industry compete globally.

The Chamber will call on Congress to pass the Water Resources Development Act, which will help better protect the economy and citizens against severe weather and flooding and facilitate commerce at our nation's waterways and ports by authorizing federal funding for projects. 

Overlying these priorities will be an ongoing national education campaign about the importance of expanded transportation infrastructure capacity to the economy, public safety, and quality of life.

Counterfeiting and Piracy

As part of its continuing effort to thwart global counterfeiting and piracy, the Chamber will gather data on the economic impact of these crimes and will conduct a study directly measuring consumer attitudes and behaviors toward counterfeiting.

The Chamber will work closely with manufacturers, retailers, and law enforcement groups to disrupt the counterfeiting networks' ability to use legitimate distribution channels in the United States.

Finally, the Chamber will co-host a global strategy summit in Beijing in March as part of its plan to attack counterfeiting and piracy worldwide.

Trade

The Chamber will work to forge new trade agreements with Korea and Malaysia and win their approval in Congress, along with already completed deals with Peru and Colombia.

In addition, the Chamber will work to generate support for reauthorization of Trade Promotion Authority, which gives the president authority to negotiate trade agreements subject to approval by Congress.

For more information about the Chamber's priorities, go to www.uschamber.com/issues/priorities