Sens. Toomey, Crapo Ask Commerce to Release Vanadium, Auto, Other Section 232 Reports
Senate Finance Committee ranking member Mike Crapo and Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., announced June 14 that they sent a letter to the commerce secretary reminding her that by law, reports on the conclusions of Section 232 investigations are to be made public. The letter directs Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to send copies of reports on autos and auto parts, uranium, electric transformers and cores, vanadium, and titatanium sponges to the Senate by June 25 and to publish reports, minus business confidential information, as soon as possible.
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The Trump administration said that imports of autos and auto parts, uranium and titanium sponges were threats to national security, but did not impose quotas or tariffs in any of those cases. No reports were ever published explaining those conclusions.
According to the Congressional Research Service, Commerce also completed its reports on transformers and on vanadium, but the findings have not been disclosed. The Commerce Department has not responded to numerous questions about the vanadium report from International Trade Today. Commerce sent its vanadium report to the White House in March (see 2103020027).
Toomey and Crapo quoted the Biden administration's own memo on transparency in executive departments, reminding that it said the public deserves as much transparency as possible in national security matters.