Senate Finance Leaders Continue to Press Commerce on Section 232 Tariff Exclusions

The retiring chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross complaining that businesses can't get answers from the department, the exclusion process is too slow and staff provide ambiguous guidance when requests are rejected on technical grounds. Chairman Orrin Hatch and Wyden asked the department to get requests adjudicated in no more than 106 days, to clearly identify technical defects, and to improve its responses to questions. In their letter, they thanked Ross for adding a rebuttal and surrebuttal process, and for expanding exclusion eligibility to quota countries.

Exclusion requests that were filed and posted as long ago as early April remain pending, "a period more than double the 106 days targeted by DOC," they wrote. "Our assessments suggest that, of more than 29,700 posted requests awaiting decision as of December 10, more than 11,700 have been pending for more than 106 days, and more than 4,900 requests have been pending for more than 150 days. " With regard to questions to the department, not only are answers slow in coming, or often in "form" letters that don't address the specific question posed, sometimes Commerce refers businesses to the CBP, which then refers them back to Commerce.