Senators File Friend of Court Brief on Release of Auto Section 232 Report
The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and five other Republican senators signed on to a friend of the court brief pushing for the publication of the Commerce Department report on how imported autos and auto parts imperil national security. The brief, filed March 6, reminds the judge that Congress required the Commerce Department to release the report by Jan. 19 and that the original law that contains Section 232 requires publication of the report. The case the senators are joining is a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the Cause of Action Institute filed last month.
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The Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel told the Commerce Department earlier this year that it could ignore the requirement to release the report because doing so would jeopardize diplomatic negotiations the president is engaged in around autos (see 2001210054). “Contrary to OLC’s arguments, Congress’s entitlement is not limited to learning after the fact how U.S. trade policy was conducted, or to some opportunity to try to prove its case to the executive branch about participating in its conduct,” the brief said. The lawmakers also argue that whatever privileged discussions the executive branch is engaged in, the report does not contain them, the report was the precursor for them, so they cannot be covered by a claim of executive privilege.
They also note that some of them wish to amend Section 232 to change the balance of power in setting national security tariffs between Congress and the president. They need to see the report to inform those reform efforts. “Absent such information, Congress cannot know how the executive is making use of its delegated authority and thus how best to approach efforts to reforming that delegation,” they said. The senators on the brief in addition to Toomey are: Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa; Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; Bill Cassidy, R-La.; Ron Johnson, R-Wis.; Mike Lee, R-Utah; Ben Sasse, R-Neb.; and Mark Warner, D-Va.