Following is the text of English's remarks from the Congressional Record:

PRESIDENT BUSH STANDS TALL FOR DOMESTIC STEEL INDUSTRY
House of Representatives
March 06, 2002

Mr. ENGLISH. Mr. Speaker, allow me to take a moment to applaud President Bush for standing tall in favor of our domestic steel industry. He has, at a very critical moment, stood up for steel. If we have a domestic steel industry in coming decades, I believe it will be because of this courageous action and an administration that was willing to listen to steelworkers, listen to steel producers, and also listen to all other interested parties in order to craft a creative policy. He clearly listened to those who were calling for substantial relief for an industry in crisis. It has been running the risk of being hollowed out by unfair trade practices.

It is obvious that the President carefully weighed the issue. His judicious decision will provide breathing space to the domestic steelworkers and the industry. Enacting tariffs of up to 30 percent for most steel products provides help for those hardest hit by unfavorable conditions in the steel market. This administration has stepped up to the plate for the American steel industry and its workers, something that previous administrations, regrettably, had been unwilling to do.

Without the concrete actions taken by this President, the industry was facing a meltdown. The President recognized that the American steel industry and its workers have done their part in recent years. This is something that critics do not really willingly acknowledge, but the fact is our steel producers have taken dramatic steps to reduce inefficient capacity and modernize operations to become among the most productive steel producers in the world, with as few as one-and-a-half man hours needed per ton of steel produced.

That is an extraordinary transformation of an industry that was very inefficient a few decades ago.

To achieve these advances in productivity, the U.S. steel industry reduced capacity by more than 23 million tons, closed numerous inefficient mills, and significantly cut jobs. The workers have endured their fair share of pain and suffering as the workforce was reduced by hundreds of thousands of workers in an effort to become the most efficient producers of steel. But we all know that when competing with the unfair trading practices of some of our competitors, it was simply not enough.

Let us understand, Mr. Speaker, what the President did was WTO compatible. It was based on remedies approved by the International Trade Commission, and it utilized our 201 process, which the WTO contemplated. While opponents of this 201 action are crying foul, saying the cost will be prohibitive, Mr. Speaker, allow me to assure Members that their arguments are without substance.

According to a study by Professor Jerry Hausman, an economist at MIT, the assumptions from opponents such as the Consuming Industry's Trade Action Council were fundamentally flawed. Hausman's study, which unlike the CITAC study so often quoted in the media, accurately reflected the current steel market, showed the tariffs would cost the average consumer about $2 a year and have no negative impact on the U.S. economy. This was a study of stronger remedies than were actually proposed by the International Trade Commission. Hausman's study showed that the section 201 remedies would provide a net benefit of $9 billion a year to the U.S. economy. Steel constitutes only a small share of the total cost of most products that contain steel, so the cost to the consumer and the costs on a single consumer item would be minimal.

For a typical family car, the increase caused by the imposition of a 40 percent tariff would be about $60, a 30 percent tariff in the tariff structure proposed by the President would be substantially less. For a refrigerator, the increase would be less than $3.

Again, I have to congratulate the President for being engaged on these issues, looking past the cannot at the substance, and being concerned about many of the communities we have in places like western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia where people have built a living and built living wages around a steel industry that we need to have in this country for strategic reasons, and if we are going to maintain our industrial base.

Mr. Speaker, this administration has had the courage to take on this tough issue. We need to do more in Congress. We need to look at the issue of legacy costs. We need to look at ways potentially of participating in a global effort to rationalize the industry; but in the end, we can build on this 201 decision, we can build on the President's courage, and working with the administration, we have an opportunity to lay the groundwork for a strong, healthy competitive world-class American steel industry that is allowed to compete on a level playing field.