By Katherine Masters
NEW YORK (Reuters) -&nbsp;Republican&nbsp;leaders of two House committees are&nbsp;requesting United States&nbsp;Postal&nbsp;Service&nbsp;data&nbsp;on&nbsp;retailers'&nbsp;goods shipped&nbsp;from&nbsp;China&nbsp;under an exemption in U.S. trade law that excludes some packages worth $800 or less&nbsp;from&nbsp;tariffs.
The exemption, known as the de minimis rule, has earned growing scrutiny over the last few months&nbsp;from&nbsp;congressional leaders who say it unfairly benefits the&nbsp;China-founded retail companies Shein and its rival Temu, launched by parent PDD Holdings in the United States in September.
Temu did not immediately respond to a&nbsp;request&nbsp;for comment. Shein told Reuters it does not use USPS for its&nbsp;shipments&nbsp;from&nbsp;China&nbsp;to the U.S. and continues to make import compliance "a priority."
Republican&nbsp;representatives Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and James Comer, who heads the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, sent a letter on Wednesday to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy asking for &ldquo;documents, information, and&nbsp;data&rdquo; related to goods&nbsp;from&nbsp;China&nbsp;shipped into the United States.
The letter, seen by Reuters, also asked specifically for all records and&nbsp;data&nbsp;related to de minimis&nbsp;shipments&nbsp;from&nbsp;fiscal 2021 and 2022.
"Chinese companies can take advantage of the de minimis rule and ship products via commercial shipping companies, as well as the USPS, directly to U.S. consumers without paying duties and fees or subjecting their products to investigation by authorities,&rdquo; the&nbsp;request&nbsp;reads.
Gallagher&rsquo;s select committee released a separate report earlier this week estimating that Shein and Temu accounted for more than 30% of all de minimis&nbsp;shipments&nbsp;sent to the United States.
There are currently two bipartisan bills in Congress that take aim at the e-commerce companies by proposing a ban on e-commerce&nbsp;shipments&nbsp;from&nbsp;China&nbsp;and other non-market economies.
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(Reporting by Katherine Masters in New York; Editing by Mark Porter and Matthew Lewis)

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Republican lawmakers request postal service data on retailers' shipments from China