The liquefied natural gas (LNG) export approval and rescinding process delivers significant capital investment protection to LNG export facilities, at the expense of the U.S. manufacturing industry, said Industrial Energy Consumers of America President Paul Cicio in a Nov. 7 letter (here) to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. The Energy Department is failing to uphold its duty to preserve U.S. public interest in its LNG authorization process by allowing natural gas prices for domestic consumers to rise, said Cicio.

The Commerce Department published notices in the Nov. 8 Federal Register on the following AD/CV duty proceedings (any notices that announce changes to AD/CV duty rates, scope, affected firms, or effective dates will be detailed in another ITT article):

The Commerce Department intends to exempt rectangular wire from antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions from China (A-570-967/C-570-968), it said in the preliminary results of a changed circumstances review. The partial revocation was requested by 3M in June, and to date no domestic producers have expressed any interest in maintaining AD/CVD coverage on rectangular wire, despite Commerce’s request for comments in August (see 13081921). If in the final results Commerce continues to find rectangular wire should be exempted from AD/CV duties, it will add the following exclusion paragraph to the scope of the AD/CV duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China:

CBP’s ruling revocation on Best Key’s yarn will take effect 60 days after the end of the federal government shutdown on Oct. 17, instead of the nominal publication date of Oct. 2, ruled the Court of International Trade on Nov. 4. Although paper copies of the ruling revocation may have been available during the shutdown, CBP is required to give 60 days of public notice before a ruling revocation takes effect, and the ruling wasn’t easily accessible to the public until the government resumed operations, CIT said. The court decision is only the latest chapter in an ongoing dispute over classification of the metal-containing yarn. Best Key is attempting to reverse CBP’s revocation of the ruling in another CIT lawsuit filed Oct. 25.

The Commerce Department is giving advance notice that it and the International Trade Commission will consider revoking the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on circular welded carbon quality steel line pipe from China (A-570-935/C-570-936), and the AD duty order on diamond sawblades from China (A-570-900), in their automatic five-year sunset reviews scheduled to begin in December. Advance notice is given because sunset reviews have short deadlines. An order will be revoked unless Commerce finds that revocation would lead to a continuation or recurrence of dumping and the ITC finds that revocation would result in continuation or recurrence of material injury to a U.S. industry. As a result, a negative determination by either Commerce or the ITC would result in the revocation of these orders.

The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission began the five-year Sunset Reviews of the antidumping duty orders on ferrovanadium from China and South Africa (A-570-873, A-791-815); uncovered innerspring units from China, South Africa, and Vietnam (A-570-928, A-791-821, A-552-803); and freshwater crawfish tailmeat from China (A-570848).

An otherwise routine order exposed a split at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on how it should review decisions by the Court of International Trade. The appeals court on Oct. 25 rejected a request to rehear an antidumping duty case where CAFC in May effectively reinstated AD duties on ball bearings from The United Kingdom and Japan (see 13051716). In its May decision, CAFC reversed a series of CIT decisions going back seven years. CAFC Chief Judge Randall Rader, along with Judges Evan Wallach and Jimmie Reyna -- both of whom have trade law experience -- dissented from CAFC’s decision not to rehear the case. They said CAFC should depart from its current standard of how it reviews CIT decisions, and defer more to the lower court’s expertise on trade. But the majority of five CAFC judges disagreed. A stricter standard of review would run contrary to how every other federal appeals court looks at district court cases, they said.

The Federal Maritime Commission released a notice of the filing of the following agreements under the Shipping Act of 1984. Interested parties may submit comments on the agreement to the Secretary, Federal Maritime Commission, Washington, DC 20573, within 10 days.

A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the Commerce Department posted to CBP's website Oct. 28, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at addcvd.cbp.gov. (CBP occasionally adds backdated messages without otherwise indicating which message was added. ITT will include a message date in parentheses in such cases.)

International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Oct. 21-25 in case they were missed.