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 ROCKEFELLER  CALLS  ON  PRESIDENT  BUSH  TO IMMEDIATELY  ADDRESS  STEEL  CRISIS
Senator Calls for Section 201 Review and Asks Bush to Convene an Emergency National Summit on Steel

WASHINGTON, DC -- After weeks of discussions with President Bush’s cabinet nominations, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) today called on President Bush himself to immediately address the United States’ steel industry crisis.  In a letter to Bush, Rockefeller outlined necessary action and suggested that President Bush and his Administration must take immediate steps to save America’s steel industry. 

Noting that almost half our nation’s largest steelmakers are in bankruptcy, Rockefeller said that the Bush Administration should immediately undertake the following three steps:

(1) an immediate call for a 201 review by the International Trade Commission;

(2) convene an Emergency National Summit on Steel; and,

(3) initiate an emergency round of multilateral steel negotiations with both our WTO and non-WTO trading partners to negotiate and achieve meaningful temporary restraints on steel imports.

Over the past three years, Senator Rockefeller repeatedly pressed President Clinton for a Section 201 trade investigation.  In his last days of office, President Clinton sent a letter to the Chairman of the International Trade Commission (ITC) urging him to consider initiating a Section 201 investigation for steel imports. 

In recent weeks, Senator Rockefeller met with Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, Commerce Secretary Don Evans, and USTR designee Robert Zoellick to discuss the incoming Administration’s role in addressing the escalating domestic steel crisis.

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