U.S. Government Asks For Public Comment On Section 232 Exclusion Process

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has issued a request for comment on ways that it can further improve the Section 232 tariff exclusion process for steel and aluminum products. Comments are due by March 28, 2022.

In its request, BIS said that, as of January 30, 2022, it had processed more than 382,000 exclusion requests and made determinations for approximately 369,000 of them. Its average processing times are 43 days for the 70 percent of requests that do not receive objections, but more than double that (98 days) for requests that have objections.

The bureau would like to hear from stakeholders regarding:

• Whether the exclusion process properly responds to market demand;
• The overall transparency of the process;
• How the process can be changed or improved generally;
• How BIS can reduce the volume of submission errors and rejected filings in the exclusions portal;
• How BIS can address the time for processing exclusion requests, including reducing length or type of attachments that are required;
• The process for requiring public summaries of any confidential business information in requests and objections;
• Requiring public disclosure of delivery times on request and objection forms;
• Requiring recent evidence supporting claims made in a request or objection;
• Streamlining online forms or otherwise reducing administrative burden; and
• Assessing the general approved exclusions criteria and identification of products.

Click here to read BIS’s full request and to find information on how to comment.