Senator Toomey Slams USTR’s Proposed Carbon Tariffs in Senate Floor Speech

president senator from Pennsylvania thank you Mr President you know it brings me no joy to rise to say I told you so but for nearly five years now Americans have been paying the price quite literally for the Trump Biden tariffs on imported steel and aluminum and let me just remind my colleagues that tariff is just a word that we use sometimes to obfuscate the fact that these tariffs are just taxes on American consumers a tax they pay when they purchase something that has the tariffed material in it so I want to make three points about this today Mr President first that taxes generally and these taxes in particular do tremendous economic harm secondly these taxes have been imposed by presidents from both parties and imposed unilaterally increasingly and without so much as a vote by the Congress and third this is all about to get much worse this is what happens when Congress willfully abrogates its constitutional responsibilities over trade and tax policy to the executive branch so let me start with the economic costs so the fact is no serious dispute in the economic world these tariffs these taxes do much more harm than good now I know supporters of these tariffs including now the byte Administration they will argue that this is necessary to protect American jobs that's what they'll say well there are roughly 140 000 workers directly employed in the steel industry in the United States that's a big number 140 000. but there are literally millions of American workers in industries that use steel or steal inputs made of steel and their jobs are jeopardized by the higher cost that's created when we tax these products by the way these millions of Americans who work in the industries that you steal they outnumber Steel Workers by a ratio of roughly 80 to 1. that's what we're talking about here the Peterson Institute estimated that for every job saved by the Trump Biden taxes on Steel the cost to American consumers was 650 thousand dollars obviously many times more than the average steel worker salary and these costs are all paid by price increases for consumers they also cost people their livelihoods by one estimate the job losses from these tariffs alone have been as high as 75 000 jobs this has included a lot of jobs thousands of jobs in my state of Pennsylvania so as my colleagues a simple question is it ever really fair for the government to intervene in the economy in a way that ranks one person's right to earn a living higher than in other persons is that is that really what this government should do decide who gets to have a job and who doesn't it's not a close call flat out morally wrong for the government to be deciding which Americans get to work and which ones don't and that's what's Happening Here it's also the case that this unilateral imposition of these taxes by presidents is being done with a completely dishonest justification these tariffs have been increasingly imposed unilaterally as I said by presidents who hide behind a national security rationale that's what they say in other words to add insult to injury these taxes have been imposed not through an act of Congress but by executive Fiat and an executive Fiat that's based on a completely false premise why is this the case well because there's a deep flaw in a Cold War era law the law is called the 1962 trade act and has this section called section number 232-232 and that section permits the president to impose these tariffs or taxes on a product if his Commerce Secretary decides that the product is a threat to the National Security interests of the United States that sounds like a reasonable idea it's been applied in Ridiculous Ways Mr President I would suggest it is ludicrous to assert that our national security is harmed because we import mostly small quantities of Steel and aluminum from allies like Canada Mexico Brazil South Korea the EU Australia Japan many others but you don't have to take my word for it you could take the word of someone who's absolutely an expert on National Security Former Defense secretary Mattis he agrees with me in a memo to president Trump's Commerce Secretary he urged against imposing these tariffs on steel and aluminum he noted that the U.S military needs for steel and aluminum are met with a mere three percent of America's domestic production of those Metals so let me put this a different way it means what we manufacture domestically the steel and aluminum that we make in America is more than 30 times what our military needs our defense needs how could you possibly argue that these small quantities that we import on top of all that we make is a national security risk it's ridiculous and by the way over the past decade we've consistently produced anywhere from 70 to 90 percent of the steel we consume let me say that again if you look at all the steel that we consume in the entire United States of America for all purposes and it's a very long list we make 70 to 90 of that steel and there's a national security threat to import these small other quantities to supplement what we produce of course it's not it's completely disingenuous and frankly invoking National Security as a justification to impose these taxes on Americans it's a slap in the face slap in the face of small businesses struggling to stay afloat those small businesses that have to buy this deal with these taxes on it which they sometimes can't afford the manufacturing workers who are laid off as the input cost Rises and their product is no longer competitive the exporters who see their markets shut off because foreign countries retaliate against these tariffs terrible policy there's another problem with this Mr President it's reasonable to ask a question if the president can falsely invoke National Security for the sake of imposing these taxes on steel and aluminum is there anything that he can't put a tariff on using this justification I mean if he can use a false justification I mean you could falsely allege almost anything is related to National Security I suppose recent Court decisions have implied that if there is a limiting factor the administration certainly hasn't found it in fact the previous president seemed to think that after imposing tariffs he could go back and double them or maybe triple them for any reason or for no reason at all this is what's happening that's exactly what the former president did when he doubled the tariffs he had earlier imposed on Turkish steel and aluminum when this was challenged in a court a majority gave him a pass but one judge had a very incentful dissent he disagreed in writing and he said and I quote I fear that the majority decision in that particular case effectively accomplishes what not even Congress can legitimately do to reassign to the president it's constitutionally vested power over the Tariff I dissent end quote that judges exactly right it's exactly right is a separate instance where a judge wanting to underscore the lack of any limiting principle on a president's ability to misuse this section 232 he asked during an oral argument if the president could invoke National Security under Section 232 to put tariffs on peanut butter the lawyer defending the tariffs for the administration either couldn't or wouldn't directly answer that question I know why he wouldn't answer the question Mr President the reason is they didn't want to acknowledge even the possibility that there could be any limits on a president's ability to misuse the National Security Clause from section 232 even if it's on peanut butter so where does that leave us today well I regret to inform my colleagues that this complete abandonment of any pretense that National Security actually has to matter for the purposes of imposing these tariffs the pretense is gone when the hypothetical case of peanut butter but now it's arrived in reality and it's a lot worse than peanut butter this is a whole lot like the administration is pursuing section 232 tariffs on carbon dioxide emissions now it's under the auspices of the Trump's 232 tariffs on steel aluminum the U.S trade rep has just proposed a preliminary agreement with the European Union for a quote they call it carbon intensity regime for steel and aluminum trade here's how this would work the new regime would use the threat of ultra high tariffs on the steel and aluminum from other countries as a way to coerce them into implementing the administration's preferred climate policies It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas for climate activists in short the administration's proposal creates a new trade club for countries with so-called green steel and aluminum and even though they won't admit it yet they're using section 232 to justify this now for countries to join this exclusive Club countries need to do three things they need to prove that their carbon emissions for steel and aluminum fall below some level that the administration will conjure up second they need to implement low and zero emission requirements for steel and aluminum in government procurement and thirdly they need to demonstrate that they're taking a hard line on trade remedies now if a country qualifies for this club congratulations you're steel and aluminum will be subject to taxes on American consumers of between 0 and 25 percent depending on your emissions if you don't join the club either because you can't qualify or you don't want to be saddled with these costs why then Americans will be taxed much more severely for countries outside the club who want to sell steel steel and aluminum Americans will have to pay 25 to 70 percent taxes on those purchases Mr President this idea has all kinds of very serious problems first and foremost it is a completely unbridled overreach of authority by the executive branch the office of the U.S trade rep is clearly asserting that that office has power to establish carbon emissions policy for the U.S and our trading partners last time I checked even the EPA doesn't have that Authority where's the ustr come off with this they're also abusing the conditionally delegated National Security powers to enact this sweeping tariff policy which is the responsibility of Congress second is that the economic harm from this proposal is going to significantly compound the harm inflicted by the current 232 tariffs that are already in place first it will result in a regime of increasingly managed trade and steel and aluminum that'll probably benefit a handful of Select producers and a huge loss to everyone else it'll hit many of our allies with increased tariffs and that will result in retaliation against American exports it'll devastate American manufacturers and downstream users who rely on steel and aluminum inputs for their business and most importantly it's going to dramatically raise prices for consumers at a time when inflation is still out of control what makes this whole scenario really particularly egregious is that Congress never once voted on it not once not one of my colleagues in this body or the other had the opportunity to go on record either for or against these in fact had any meaningful say in this now I suspect some of my colleagues are perfectly okay with that Mr President as I warn my colleagues on both sides of the aisle years ago this abuse of section 232 will haunt us like a protectionist Frankenstein unless Congress Reigns in executive abuse of this law let me be clear it's never appropriate for a president of either party to use National Security authorities to achieve unrelated policy goals to be dishonest about what's really going on here is not acceptable past presidents used to understand this prior to president Trump the last time a U.S president used section 232 to restrict trade was back in 1986. since the Trump Administration we've seen these National Security investigations which is the precursor they need to check their box so that they can impose these tariffs we've seen these investigations on uranium titanium sponge power transformer components Vanadium magnets and then perhaps most absurdly automobiles and car parts because I suppose if you drive a Toyota and Suburban Philadelphia that makes you a threat to American National Security well as George Will asked in a 2019 column lamenting executive overreach under this very section of our trade law he said what's next a tariff on peanut butter Well turns out we already have pretty high tariffs on Peanut Butter but now we're going to raise tariffs taxes even higher on steel and aluminum and use trade law to enact climate policy while we're at it Mr President it is well past time for Congress to reassert and to accept its constitutional responsibility over trade and tariffs we can do that by requiring that the new section 232 tariffs including the Biden administration's carbon plan that before they go into effect they have to be approved by Congress what's wrong with that the Constitution says it's our responsibility why not require an up or down vote in Congress before these taxes can go into into Force I've introduced bipartisan legislation that would do exactly that but if we fail to act our constituents are going to keep on paying ever more expensive prices I yield the floor