In the 1980s, the European Economic Community (EEC) emerged as a competitor for export sales, particularly of grain. EEC export restitutions (subsidies) undercut U.S. sales, with the result that farm-state Members of Congress, led by Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, pushed through new legislation authorizing broader subsidization of commercial export sales. This Export Enhancement Program (or EEP, though it was originally called "BICEP" by Senator Dole) was used primarily to counter EEC subsidies in important markets. Use of EEP opened the United States to criticism from less developed countries on the grounds that export subsidies undercut their own farmers by depressing global commodity prices. By the mid-1990s EEP was largely abandoned in favor of negotiating for a multilateral ban on agricultural export subsidies; it was last used, for a single sale, during the Clinton administration. With founding of the World Trade Organization in January 1995, trade-distorting domestic agricultural supports were capped in all member states and absolute import quotas were banned, but negotiations on eliminating export subsidies continue still.