SMA lobbies on behalf of EAF steelmakers - Recycling Today

By Brian Taylor, Senior Editor

The Washington-based Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA) has sent a delegation to meet with officials from the Biden administration to advocate for policies favorable to recycled-content electric arc furnace (EAF) steel production.

The delegation visited the White House in early September to talk about fair trade policy, the importance of a single standard for steel in the Buy Clean program and the value of EAF steelmaking to America’s clean energy future.

The group's delegation was led by SMA board Chairman Ty Garrison of Texas-based CMC and included SMA board member and Global Steel Climate Council Chair Greg Murphy of North Carolina-based Nucor Corp.; SMA board member Ed Goettl of Texas-based Optimus Steel; SMA President Philip K. Bell; and SMA Vice President of Government Affairs Brandon Farris.

The SMA delegation met with Ambassador Katherine Tai at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative USRI; Navtej Dhillon, deputy director of the White House National Economic Council; Monica Gorman, special assistant to the president for manufacturing and industrial policy; and representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the White House Office of Climate Policy.

In July, the SMA joined six other organizations to urge House Speaker Mike Johnson to include the Leveling the Playing Field 2.0 Act in a proposed package of legislation designed to address China’s perceived unfair trade practices.

Joining the SMA in signing the letter were the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), the Specialty Steel Industry of North America (SSINA), the United Steelworkers (USW), the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) and the Committee on Pipe and Tube Imports (CPTI).

"The Leveling the Playing Field 2.0 Act, which has strong bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate, gives the U.S. government the tools it needs to improve enforcement of trade laws that China has been exploiting, particularly through transshipment of heavily subsidized steel products that are then illegally dumped in the U.S. market," Bell said.

Also in July, Bell testified before a Congressional committee regarding the Buy Clean Act, urging the General Service Administration (GSA) guidelines for that program not set a second, less strict emissions standard for blast furnace/basic oxygen furnace steelmakers.

“We have serious concerns with the GSA’s implementation of its Buy Clean program and their adoption of a dual emissions standard for steel,” Bell said. “A single standard is simple and transparent. A single standard is fair to all producers and encourages innovation and investment. A single standard results in the greatest emissions reductions and will further our global advantage on low emissions steel. A single standard is the only way to comply with the statute.”

Earlier this month on the trade front, SMA member company Steel Dynamics Inc., Fort Wayne, Indiana, petitioned the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission to apply antidumping duties against imports of corrosion-resistant flat-rolled steel (CORE) not from China but from several other nations: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. SDI also has asked for countervailing duties against imports of CORE from Brazil, Canada, Mexico and Vietnam.