Section 232 Hearing Preparation
As witnessed in April, the President signed an Executive Order initiating a Section 232 investigation. This move creates both opportunities and risks to our industry.
The Department of Commerce will hold a public hearing on the investigation on June 22, 2017, in Washington, DC. Therefore, it is extremely important that the AEC participates in this hearing. However, we will need your help.
In short, the 232 order gives the President the power to take unilateral trade measures on behalf of national security.
The definition of national security is broad and can include applications in infrastructure and key strategic industries. A template aimed at capturing your shipments to these key applications is available to download below. The more responses we get, the stronger our voice.
Leading up to the hearing, AEC will be preparing documents and data to present at the hearing on behalf of our industry.
Timeline
June 6 Webinar to review the data collection worksheet at 12:00 p.m. EDT (11:00 a.m. CDT; 9:00 a.m. PDT)
June 9 All AEC members' data must be received
June 15 Request to appear at hearing will be filed
June 22 Section 232 Hearing in Washington, DC
June 23 Post-hearing submission due (AEC comments that will contain information that we gather now to address the key elements identified in the BIS investigation)
Process
Data Collection Template
A data template has been created for quickly collecting information from AEC members regarding the 232 investigation that we can use to fashion relief comments. Please note that the definition of “critical infrastructure” we used comes directly from the Department of Homeland Security and Presidential Policy Directive 21 (PPD-21): Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience. This definition is quite broad and likely covers much of what AEC members produce. What we do not have a good handle on is the amount of extrusions produced for defense-specific applications that this template will help provide.
The data and information will be gathered by our Fair Trade counsel, which will be kept confidential. We can then use the broad aggregated data as part of the submission.
We will also want anecdotal examples of projects lost to imports that we can point to. To help with that, the International Trade Commission (ITC) standard lost sale/lost revenue template is available to download. You can either use this template to provide specific examples, or just send Wiley Rein bullet points on the transaction, but try to include as much of this information as possible that would be helpful. They do not need a comprehensive list, but just a few key examples to help tell the story.
Help Chain
You may contact Jeff Henderson with questions but remember that AEC staff cannot be a data collector nor should we be your source to answer questions pertaining to your data submission.
Data Submission
DO NOT send your data to AEC! Send your data to our new attorney for the 232 Investigation:
Matthew McConkey
Mayer Brown LLP
MMcConkey@mayerbrown.com
202.263.3000