Senator Arlen Specter - Pennsylvania

Arlen Specter - U.S. Senator - Pennsylvania

April 19th, 2002

Contact: William Reynolds, 202-224-9020

SPECTER INTRODUCES BILL ON STEELWORKERES' "LEGACY COSTS"

- WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), has introduced legislation with Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) to address the "legacy cost" issue of the beleaguered steel industry. The "Steel Industry Retiree Benefits Protection Act of 2002," would assure the retirement health care benefits for the Nation’s retired steelworkers and their dependents, and the survival of a domestic integrated steel industry.

"The domestic steel industry has been forced to compete over the last thirty years in an international marketplace in which foreign governments have subsidized both domestic production and employee healthcare costs and, simultaneously, stimulated the creation and maintenance of excess world steelmaking capacity," stated Senator Specter while introducing the legislation. "A clear consensus now exists that the only way a domestic integrated steel industry can survive is through consolidation. Consolidation cannot occur until relief is obtained from the legacy cost obligations."

The financing of the Federal legacy cost payments would come from several sources including steel tariff revenues, a charge on the income produced by acquired steel assets, retiree premiums and appropriated funds.

"I am pleased to note that labor and management have joined in a common effort to resolve the near-intractable problems that face the industry today, and I thank them for that spirit of cooperation and compromise," Specter commented in regards to the cooperation displayed between the steel industry and the United Steelworkers of America in consultation on the bill.

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