[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 13777-13778]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                      STEEL IMPORT LIMITATION ACT

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, unfortunately I was unable to vote on the 
cloture petition on the motion to proceed to H.R. 975, the Steel Import 
Limitation Act. If I was able, I would have voted against cloture. This 
legislation will not achieve its desired purpose and will only hurt 
American workers and consumers.
  Some supporters of this legislation have asserted that this bill is 
necessary to support the steel industry. I am willing to do my part to 
ensure that America continues to have the most efficient and 
competitive steel industry in the world. The domestic steel industry 
plays an important role in protecting our national security by ensuring 
that we will have enough steel to build ships, tanks, planes, and 
missiles to protect the United States. Additionally, steel remains an 
important input in large sectors of our economy, including 
transportation equipment, fabricated metal products, industrial 
machinery and construction.
  However, this legislation is not written to save domestic steel jobs, 
but instead will jeopardize American jobs. For every 1 job that 
produces steel, 40 jobs in the downstream industries use steel. If 
Congress passes this quota legislation, it will cause a shortage and 
drastic increase in the price of steel that will threaten the jobs of 
the 8 million employees in steel-using industries. For example, 
Caterpillar, Inc. uses a heavy special-section steel for bulldozer 
track-shoes. This steel is not produced in the United States, so 
Caterpillar imports it from overseas to its American plants. If we pass 
this quota legislation, Caterpillar will not be able to import the 
steel it requires, which will threaten the jobs of Caterpillar's 40,261 
workers in the U.S.
  I also do not think that this quota legislation will help the steel 
industry. According to the Wall Street Journal, American steelmakers 
buy up to 25% of the steel coming into the United States. The steel 
companies need to buy this steel to reach their highest capacity of 
steel production. Weirton imports close to 400,000 tons of slab a year. 
Bethlehem Steel imported at least 416,000 tons of steel last year. If 
we shut off the necessary imports of foreign steel to these companies, 
how can they keep American steel product workers employed?
  While I know that the steel industry has been affected by the dumping 
of foreign steel in the U.S. market, I believe that the proper steps 
have been taken to deal with this crisis. Since January, 1999, 42 
antidumping and countervailing duty steel investigations have been 
initiated or completed. As a result of just one of these anti-dumping 
cases, duties of between 67.14% and 17.86% will be imposed on select 
Japanese firms. These duties will ensure that U.S. companies will have 
a better chance to compete.
  That the existing process for handling anti-dumping cases is working 
is proven by the recent statistics on steel imports. Total steel 
imports dropped 42% from August, 1998, to April, 1999. In fact, April, 
1999, imports are actually 6% below steel imports in April, 1997. 
Imports of hot-rolled steel, which account for 25 percent of all steel 
imports, fell 72% since the peak levels of November, 1998. Hot-rolled 
steel imports from Japan, Russia, and Brazil fell almost 100% from 
November to April. It is no wonder that Secretary Daley said in the 
Friday, June 18, Washington Post that ``the steel crisis of '98, in my 
opinion, is over.'' Given the decline in recent imports, there seems to 
be no need for this legislation. These results, under existing law, 
were attained in a manner fully consistent with our obligations under 
the World Trade Organization.
  This leads me to a more important point. We should not look at this 
legislation in only the narrow view of what it will do for the steel 
industry. Instead, we should see what it will do to the world economy.
  The past two years have been devastating for many of our trading 
partners. Most of Asia is slowly turning the corner back from the 
disaster of the Asian economic crisis. Just recently, Japan announced a 
positive growth rate of 1.9% after six successive quarters of 
contraction. Both Brazil and Argentina have suffered from economic 
turmoil. In Europe, the Russian economy remains a basket case. Germany, 
the former European economic powerhouse, grew a mere 0.4% in real 
terms, and is on the verge of recession.
  The United States must be careful not to do anything that will plunge 
the

[[Page 13778]]

world into recession. If we were to pass this non-WTO compliant 
legislation, the likely result is that other countries will respond by 
limiting our products from their markets. The resulting trade wars 
could affect millions of workers and lead to economic and political 
turmoil. While some view such a result as extreme, we all should 
remember that the Smoot-Hawley tariff legislation started a similar 
series of trade wars in the early 1930s that directly corresponded to 
the rise of Hitler and the origins of World War II.
  Some would urge us to pass this legislation with the hopes that it 
will emasculate the WTO. I can only tell you how much I regret this 
short-sighted view. The United States, more than any other country, 
created today's trading system based on the principles of free trade. 
It was developed after witnessing how the trade wars of the 1930s led 
to the worldwide calamity of World War II. The United States has 
pursued a trade policy based on open markets for more than 50 years 
under both Republican and Democratic leadership. We should not allow 
misguided politics to destroy all of the gains that we fought so hard 
to achieve, precisely when we are reaping the benefits of these 
policies.
  Instead, the United States, which has the strongest economy in the 
world, should try to use its leverage to continue to open markets. We 
should open the November WTO Ministerial as the champions of 
competition and open markets, not hiding behind a wall of quotas and 
tariffs. We in Congress should do our part to ensure that the United 
States remains in its position of world leadership. Instead of debating 
this ill-advised quota bill, we should be passing fast track authority 
for the President. The President needs this authority to continue to 
make agreements to knock down foreign barriers to American goods. 
Additionally, we should pass legislation to grant NAFTA parity to our 
Caribbean allies and to give trade incentives to help Africa grow and 
prosper. My hope is that after we reject this current legislation, we 
can start debating real progress in trade policy and how we can 
eliminate barriers to foreign goods to ensure that our citizens 
continue to prosper into the 21st Century.
  In conclusion, I congratulate my colleagues who voted against cloture 
on the motion to proceed to this legislation. We will now begin the 
next global century not hiding behind barriers, but continuing the 
fight for open markets and prosperity.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I would like to take a few brief moments to 
comment on the cloture vote that just occurred regarding H.R. 975, the 
Steel Import Limitation bill.
  As has been noted by several of my colleagues this afternoon, this 
was a difficult vote. There exist compelling interests on both sides of 
the steel quota issue that were only touched upon earlier. Without 
question, this legislation is critically important to those men and 
women involved in the steel industry who have suffered financially due 
to alleged steel dumping practices. At the same time, this bill could 
also have a profound effect on this country's trade policy and 
countless other American industries' relationships with our foreign 
trading partners.
  Understanding that these are cursory assessments of the deeper 
substance of this bill, I present them simply to underscore the need to 
discuss the bill at greater length, to emphasize the importance of 
allowing Senators the opportunity to articulate their specific concerns 
and positions on this legislation. This was not a vote on final passage 
or a vote to support this bill in its current form. Rather, it was a 
vote to move forward and fully consider this legislation and amendments 
to it. Regardless of one's opinion on the impact of this legislation, 
it deserved the chance to be considered and debated completely and 
fairly.

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