Responding to pleas from some lawmakers and the steel industry, the Commerce Department said Wednesday it will extend for another four years a program that monitors how much foreign steel is imported into the United States.
The Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis System was set to expire on March 20, but the government extended it to 2009. The Commerce Department expanded the program to include all basic steel mill products, including wire rod, heavy structural beams, oil country tubular goods, and stainless steel sheet and strip. The program previously included only the steel products named in the tariffs President Bush implemented.
The system, which gives the government and steel companies an early warning of steel imports, was created in 2003 as part of Bush's program that imposed tariffs on low-priced steel imports that were flooding the market and allegedly hurting the domestic steel industry. Bush ended the tariffs in December 2003, but kept the import monitoring system in place.
U.S. Steel Chief Executive Officer John Surma said yesterday that the decision to extend the monitoring program was "an excellent common-sense approach" to assessing the global steel situation. Surma noted that the import monitoring system does not restrict imports at all, but gives the steel industry information about imports about a month earlier than before SIMA was instituted.
"We use the information every day. It allows us to make more intelligent decisions," Surma said.
Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn Hills, said at a news conference yesterday he had contacted the White House and "pushed very hard" for an extension of the monitoring system.
"It's a great win for the steel industry," Santorum said.
The decision was announced a week after the Congressional Steel Caucus introduced legislation in the Senate to permanently implement the monitoring program as part of the U.S. trade laws.
The program requires the government to collect data including the steel product being imported, its value, the volume of the order and its port of entry.
