H.R. 6318 — No GOUGE Act

This section defines terms used in the Act, including "Commission" (i.e., Federal Trade Commission); "component," "final good," and "good" (i.e., goods offered for sale in commerce, with final goods ready for consumer sale without further assembly and components incorporated into final goods); "planned tariff" (i.e., a tariff or rate change announced publicly by specified senior officials); "State" (i.e., states, District of Columbia, territories, possessions, and federally recognized Indian tribes); "tariffed good" (i.e., final goods, U.S.-assembled goods with tariffed components, components, or goods subject to tariffs or planned tariffs entering force on or after January 20, 2025); "tariff-related shock date" (i.e., dates preceded by tariffs or planned tariffs on at least five tariff lines or a tariff rate increase of more than 25 percentage points in the prior 30 days); and "ultimate parent entity" (as defined in 16 C.F.R. § 801.1).

This section prohibits any person from selling or offering for sale a tariffed good at an unreasonably high price during the five-year period following the date a tariff applicable to such good enters into force or a planned tariff is announced in a written or spoken statement. An unreasonably high price occurs if the price increase exceeds costs directly generated by the tariff (or by the tariff plus additional costs, excluding increased executive compensation or share repurchase programs), with the baseline price measured as the average during the 180-day period preceding the tariff or announcement; the prohibition applies to final goods, U.S.-assembled goods incorporating tariffed components, and tariffed components. This section exempts sales by persons whose ultimate parent entity earned less than $100 million in gross U.S. goods revenue during the prior 12 months (adjusted annually for inflation). This section establishes a rebuttable presumption of violation on a tariff-related shock date if a person with unfair leverage sells or offers the good above the 180-day pre-tariff average price, rebuttable by clear and convincing evidence that the increase is fully attributable to tariff-generated costs (or such costs plus specified additional costs); unfair leverage applies to persons (or their ultimate parents) with at least $1 billion in gross U.S. goods revenue during the prior 12 months (adjusted annually for inflation) or other characteristics defined in FTC regulations. The section directs the Federal Trade Commission to promulgate such regulations, considering a person's capacity to absorb tariff costs.

This section directs the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), jointly, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), separately, to submit annual reports to Congress and the public, beginning one year after enactment of this Act. (1) The ITC and BLS report covers prices of goods sold by companies with $1 billion or more ($1,000,000,000) in prior-year gross revenue, focusing on changes in prices of tariffed goods; prior to the first report, BLS must assess whether existing surveys provide sufficiently granular data on pricing decisions and consumer prices for tariffed goods and, if not, develop new surveys. (2) The FTC report covers enforcement activities under this Act and assesses their impact on consumer prices for tariffed goods and all goods.