- Senator Arlen Specter, Chairman
of the Senate Steel Caucus has organized a
bi-partisan group of Senators to send a letter to
President Bush regarding their support of the
Byrd/Durbin/DeWine Amendment, which was accepted
as part of the Fiscal Year 2001 Agriculture
Appropriations Conference Report.
The
Amendment provides for the return of duties
collected in antidumping and countervailing duty
order cases to the industries affected by the
activity, rather than placing them in the general
U.S. Treasury.
“As you are well aware, the
U.S. Steel industry is currently facing desperate
conditions due to injury caused by the flood of
foreign steel into the United States. Illegal
imports have contributed to the loss of some
330,000 U.S. jobs over the last 20 years. In
addition, fourteen steel companies have filed for
bankruptcy since the steel import crises began in
1997, including six companies in the last six
months. The Byrd/Durbin/DeWine legislation is
critical, since it is expected to alleviate some
of the hemorrhaging taking place in the domestic
steel industry and other industries, including
agriculture and electronics, which are affected by
dumping.”
The letter was signed by Senator
Arlen Specter, R-PA, as Chairman, and John
Rockefeller, D-WV as Co-Chairman. They were joined
by the Amendment’s co-sponsors Robert Byrd, D-WV;
Dick Durbin, D-IL; and Mike DeWine R-OH. In
addition, Rick Santorum, R-PA; Earnest Hollings,
D-SC; Evan Bayh, D-IN; Barbara Mikulski, D-MD;
Mark Dayton, D-MI; Blanche Lincoln, D-AR; Richard
Shelby, R-AL; Herb Kohl, D-WI; and Paul Sarbanes,
D-MD signed in support of the Amendment. |
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: radio clip | 
