US Steel makers ask government for help

US Steel makers ask government for help. Steel industry executives told a congressional hearing Thursday the government must strengthen laws against Chinese steel dumped in the U.S. market, end China's currency manipulation and craft an industry-sensitive energy policy to generate a meaningful economic recovery. "We are in a trade war; we just haven't shown up for it," Daniel DiMicco, CEO of Nucor Corp., said at a Congressional Steel Caucus hearing in Washington. "For too long, our government was complacent about China's illegal and abusive trade policy." Nucor, the largest U.S. steelmaker by 2009 sales, said Congress should pass legislation that would let companies petition for higher duties on Chinese imports to compensate for the effect of a weak currency, DiMicco said. China deliberately weakens its currency to make exports cheaper in the United States, DiMicco said. The trade laws against China must be enforced because its massive government subsidies and their targeting of the steel industry have given that nation as much as two-thirds of the global pipe and tube production capacity, said L. Scott Barnes, vice president for TMK IPSCO, which operates a pipe mill in Ambridge and a steel mill in Koppel, both in Beaver County. Because it won unfair-trade cases against Chinese imports, Barnes said his company had confidence to invest $10 million in a pipe-threading plant in Brookfield, Ohio, which will serve the new natural gas drilling activities in the Marcellus Shale region. The steel industry this year is on a rebound after a disastrous 2009, during which shipments plunged to a low of 65 million tons and mills operated at less than 40 percent capacity. Shipments are projected to rise by 20 percent to between 75 million and 78 million tons, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute, a trade association in Washington. Mills operated at 71 percent of capacity last week. With the steel industry so dependent on energy, U.S. Steel Corp. CEO John Surma said the industry is concerned that energy legislation the House passed in June failed to allocate adequate emissions allowances to cover the needs of industry, and did not include an effective mechanism for controlling pollution. A national energy policy should be guided by the principle of not harming manufacturers, especially if a high priority is placed on exports and increasing manufacturing employment, Surma said. The specialty steel industry opposes climate change legislation, as well as possible federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, because the industry is the most efficient in the world, said Carl R. Moulton, international vice president for Allegheny Technologies Inc. in Pittsburgh. "The legislation or regulation will result in driving production off-shore to less efficient producers in countries that lack comparable greenhouse gas regulations. This is irrational," said Moulton, who also is vice president of the 10-member Specialty Steel Industry in North America, a trade group. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair, who is vice chairman of the 100-member Steel Caucus, said he will continue to push the House to pass the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act to protect U.S. industries from currency manipulation in trade.