Letter to Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce - Duckworth & Durbin Urge Commerce Department to Complete Investigation on Foreign Steel's Impact on National Security

Letter

Dear Mr. Secretary:

We write to urge you to conclude the Department's Section 232 investigation assessing the impact of steel imports on our national security as soon as possible. We viewed your announcement of this investigation in April as an important step in your commitment to protect American jobs. However, despite promises from you and the President that the Administration would complete this investigation on an expedited timeline by June, eight months have passed and the investigation has yet to conclude. We are concerned that the Administration's lack of decisive and prompt action has only caused further damage to the domestic steel industry and created uncertainty in the market.

In the interim, as foreign competitors have anticipated that the Administration will follow through on promises to take action to provide relief to domestic steel producers, steel imports have surged 21 percent. Your delay in completing this important investigation has had real negative impacts on our economy. This is unacceptable. The Administration must act now to ensure that America's manufacturing workers and companies are viable and ready to meet future national security challenges.

As you know, steel is critical to our nation's defense industrial base and our infrastructure. Steel production is also a key component of our nation's economic health. It is a major source of employment throughout the country and in our home state of Illinois, where the steel industry supports an estimated 64,000 jobs, including over 9,400 jobs at our steel mills. As we have discussed on numerous occasions, the devastating impact of illegal steel imports has been felt in Illinois, where the Granite City Works plant was forced to partially idle its production, resulting in a layoff of 2,000 employees in December 2015. The impacts of idled production had devastating impacts to the local economy, impacting suppliers, finishers, and other companies that support the Granite City mill, like Stein Steel Services and Tube City, where good paying jobs were also lost and have not yet been recovered.

We also urge you to make your review process in the Section 232 investigation more transparent. It is important that our domestic stakeholders are made aware of the timing and process of your report, as well as your conclusions and recommendations, in as timely a manner as possible. Additionally, any final recommendation or action by your Administration should make sure that both U.S. steel manufacturers and their downstream consumers are able to create American jobs and increase domestic production as a result of your investigation.

Thank you in advance for your attention to this request, and we look forward to your response.

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