On June 22, 2006, the Senate Appropriations Committee, during markup of its FY2007 agriculture spending measure, adopted by voice vote an amendment (section 755 of H.R. 5384 ) to facilitate travel related to licensed sales of agricultural and medical goods to Cuba. There is no similar provision in the agriculture appropriations bill passed by the House. On June 14, 2006, the House by voice vote approved an amendment to prohibit the use of appropriated funds to enforce a U.S. Department of Treasury regulation prescribing how sales of U.S. agricultural products to Cuba are to be paid. This provision is included as section 950 of H.R. 5576 , the Transportation-Treasury Appropriations Act for FY2007. This rule as issued in February 2005 by Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which administers the financial and related rules governing U.S. agricultural export sales to Cuba. It clarified the meaning of the term "payment of cash in advance." It requires that payment be received by the exporter or the seller's agent prior to the goods being shipped from the U.S. port rather than before title and control is transferred to the Cuban buyer. This provision is identical to one that both the House and the Senate included in the FY2006 Transportation-Treasury appropriations bill, which was dropped by conferees in response to a veto threat (for background, see "Legislative Developments—109 th Congress—Debate over Cash in Advance Payment Definition"). Falling agricultural exports and declining commodity prices in the late 1990s led farm groups and agribusiness firms to urge the Executive Branch to drop, and calls for Congress to pass legislation to exempt, food from U.S. economic sanctions against certain countries. The Clinton Administration on April 28, 1999, announced it would lift prohibitions on U.S. commercial sales of most agricultural commodities and food products to three countries—Iran, Libya, and Sudan. Moreover, it indicated that it would not include these products in announcing future sanctions on other countries. The Administration's decision reflected its view that food should not be used as a foreign policy tool and officials' acknowledgment that U.S. sanctions policy had hurt the U.S. farm economy. On July 27, 1999, the U.S. Department of Treasury issued country-specific export licensing regulations to exempt commercial sales of food and medical products by U.S. companies that meet specified conditions and safeguards to Iran, Libya, and Sudan. Licenses are issued by the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Regulations issued June 19, 2000, to implement a White House decision announced in September 1999 now permit sales of agricultural products to North Korea without an export license. Licensed agricultural sales to Cuba under a policy announced in May 1999 were restricted only to private and non-governmental entities (but were broadened under a statutory change that went into effect in July 2001). For the two years that the Clinton Administration's policy was in effect, Treasury approved licenses that resulted in U.S. sales of corn to Iran, durum wheat to Libya, and hard red winter wheat to Sudan. Also, President Clinton, in issuing executive orders in 1999 to impose U.S. economic sanctions on Serbia and the Taliban in Afghanistan, specifically exempted commercial sales of food and medical products from prohibitions imposed on all U.S. exports to these destinations. Congressional efforts to expand this policy to also cover sales to Cuba and to remove uncertainties in Executive Branch implementation of U.S. sanctions policy resulted in passage of the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (Title IX of H.R. 5426 , as enacted by P.L. 106-387 on October 28, 2000; referred to below as TSRA). TSRA codified the lifting of U.S. sanctions on commercial sales of food, agricultural commodities, and medical products to Iran, Libya, North Korea, and Sudan, and extended this policy to Cuba (see below). Such sales are now subject to export licensing procedures laid out in administrative regulations. In a significant policy change, Congress has future veto power on a President's proposal to impose a unilateral agricultural or medical sanction. Farm organizations, agricultural commodity associations, and agribusiness firms, since the 1980 grain embargo on the Soviet Union, have favored changing U.S. policy to exempt export sales of agricultural commodities, food products, and agricultural inputs from the broad economic sanctions currently imposed on targeted countries. They argued that prohibitions hurt only U.S. farmers and business, undermine this country's reputation as a "reliable supplier," and do not change targeted countries' behavior. In recent years, these groups joined with firms in the pharmaceutical and manufacturing sectors to call for a comprehensive review of the economic impact of these sanctions and for limits on the executive branch's use of sanctions to restrict trade. Opposition to exempting sales of agricultural commodities and food products from U.S. sanctions policy has been somewhat more diffuse. Opponents argued that current law gives the President sufficient flexibility to permit food to be shipped for humanitarian reasons, and that U.S. foodstuffs, if sold, could be misused by foreign governments or not made available to those in need. Some objected to the loosening of trade restrictions with certain countries, such as Cuba. Coming largely from the foreign policy and defense community, they viewed sanctions as a "legitimate and effective" policy tool, and drew little distinction between prohibiting sales of food and prohibiting exports of all other products. The most significant policy change made by the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 exempts commercial sales of agricultural and medical products to Cuba from the longstanding U.S. trade embargo on that country. At the same time, TSRA made permanent a prohibition on Cuba's access to U.S. private and other public financing to purchase exempted products. Though press coverage suggested that the debate was solely over a Cuba-specific measure, this act codified an exemption for sales of agricultural and medical products in the conduct of U.S. sanctions policy with respect to five countries and the terms under which this exemption operates. It further codified Clinton Administration policy (based on existing law) that prohibited making available U.S. government credits, credit guarantees, and other financial assistance to facilitate agricultural and medical product sales to certain sanctioned countries. Also, TSRA made changes to the food and medical products exemption-from-sanctions policy exercised administratively by the Executive Branch since mid-1999. This act (1) broadens the exemption to allow sales of non-food agricultural commodities and fertilizers, and (2) streamlines the process U.S. exporters follow to obtain licenses to sell exempted products to sanctioned countries. Other TSRA provisions require the President to secure future congressional approval before he can impose for foreign policy or national security reasons a restriction or prohibition on the sale of agricultural and medical products. The act also limits the duration of any such approved sanction to not more than two years unless Congress approves an extension. The TSRA provisions that cover agricultural and medical exports to countries subject to U.S. unilateral sanctions took effect on February 25, 2001. However, interagency differences between the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS)—then known as the Bureau of Export Administration (BXA)—and Treasury's OFAC over how to interpret these provisions were not resolved until considered by the White House's National Security Council. Both agencies issued their interim rules to reflect TSRA's statutory changes on July 12, 2001; these took effect on July 26, 2001. From August 2001 through April 2006, U.S. exporters sold almost $1.6 billion in agricultural products to Cuba, Iran, Libya, and Sudan under TSRA provisions. The $60 million in agricultural exports to North Korea, and also most shipments to Sudan, most likely were food donations and not commercial sales. TSRA allows licensed commercial sales of agricultural and medical products to Cuba. This policy change reflects the law's requirement that the President "terminate any unilateral agricultural sanction or unilateral medical sanction" 120 days after enactment. This provision effectively supersedes statutory provisions in the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996 ( P.L. 104-114 ). That law codified the then-regulatory prohibitions on all U.S. export/import and other transactions under the U.S. embargo imposed on Cuba in the early 1960s. Under this embargo, commercial sales of U.S.-origin agricultural products (and medical products at times) to Cuba generally were prohibited. Separately, the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 allows some commercial sales of U.S. medical products to Cuba, but under tight conditions. Though the Clinton Administration announced sanctions policy changes in 1999 and in 2000 to allow sales of agricultural and medical products to Iran, Libya, Sudan, and North Korea, it did not have legal authority to do the same with respect to Cuba. This explains why most of the congressional debate leading up to TSRA's passage revolved around whether this same exemption should be statutorily extended to apply also to Cuba. As House debate and a compromise unfolded in early summer 2000, those opposed to this opening in trade with Cuba succeeded in adding a number of Cuba-specific provisions. Under TSRA, agricultural and medical sales to Cuba are now subject to various conditions and restrictions that are similar to those already in effect on similar product sales to the other sanctioned countries. U.S. exporters must follow an export licensing process before any product can be shipped. Further, a permanent prohibition is in place against the use of any U.S. government export program or financing provided by U.S. private banks or state and local governments to facilitate licensed sales. BIS's interim rules continue the pre-2001 policy that requires medical product exports to Cuba be licensed. They also establish an expedited process for handling agricultural product sales to Cuba, and waive the restriction on the direct shipment of eligible products now permitted to be sold to Cuba.