[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 88 (Monday, June 21, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Page S7370]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              STEEL CRISIS

 Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, there is a crisis facing the steel 
industry in the United States, a crisis that has left over 10,000 
steelworkers out of jobs and could jeopardize the jobs of thousands of 
additional workers. This disruption is a result of subsidized and 
dumped goods coming into the United States from a variety of 
countries--from Russia, from Japan, from Brazil, from Indonesia--at far 
under the cost of production and far under the price the steel is being 
sold in those countries.
  While our existing laws and administrative procedures are in place 
and we've received favorable preliminary indications from 
administration officials, the time it takes to process these cases is 
too long and does not respond to a situation as dire as ours quickly 
enough. For example, hot-rolled carbon steel dumping petitions filed in 
September 1998, a full 10 months after the import surge began, were 
only recently decided. Under current law, industries and workers must 
wait until the injury has occurred or is so imminent as to be 
unavoidable to file a section 201 case.
  Meanwhile, steelworkers continue to lose their jobs and the steel 
industry is suffering tremendous losses from which it may not easily 
recover. I shouldn't have to remind anyone that five American steel 
companies have declared bankruptcy and two of them are in the State of 
Illinois (LaClede Steel in Alton, IL, and Acme Steel in Riverside, IL) 
and at least 10,000 of the Nation's 170,000 steelworkers have been laid 
off. Illinois is one of the top steel producing States and we're proud 
of our steelworkers, the industry, and the products that they make for 
the American people and the world.
  It is my belief that we should approach this situation with both 
short-term and long-term strategies that will complement each other and 
produce the maximum benefit for the U.S. economy, the steelworkers, and 
the industry. First, steel mills need access to capital to stay open 
and to keep their workers on the job, producing the finest and best 
steel in the world. That's a short-term approach that will help the 
industry and the workers when they need it most: now. And that's an 
approach that we take with this bill: H.R. 1664, Byrd-Domenici Steel 
Oil and Gas Loan Guarantee Program.
  H.R. 1664 would provide a short-term, GATT legal, guaranteed loan 
program to address the cash flow emergency created by the historic 
steel import surge. The maximum aggregate amount of a loan guarantee 
that could be available to a single company would be $250 million. The 
guarantees provided to U.S. steel mills would be 6 years in duration, 
would require the commitment of collateral, and would require a fee to 
be paid by the borrower to cover the cost of administering the program. 
The level of guarantees to be provided to a steel mill would be 85 
percent.

  Finally, a board would be created in order to implement a steel loan 
guarantee program that provides maximum benefits to the U.S. steel 
industry and protection to the taxpayers.
  Second, we need to put more teeth into current trade laws. 
Specifically, we should strengthen section 201 language by removing a 
very high causation standard and replacing that standard with a lower 
threshold by which U.S. industries and workers can prove their cases 
more easily. Let me state for the Record that if we reform our trade 
laws and we ensure our trading partners know we are serious about 
enforcing those laws, the incentive to dump steel or other imported 
products will be reduced. I liken this to the Senate filibuster. The 
threat of a filibuster may be far more effective than the actual 
filibuster itself. Similarly, the threat of more readily-proven dumping 
cases may, in fact, make a country think twice about dumping a product 
illegally into this country. Legislation was recently marked up in the 
Finance Committee that addressed the issue of section 201 and we should 
have a healthy debate about that as well.
  In the meantime, Mr. President, we have a responsibility as Senators 
to address this issue as well as the serious situation the oil and gas 
industries is currently experiencing; and, I hope we can find a 
consensus solution that will help both these backbones of the U.S. 
industrial sector.

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