ME FIRST — COALITION AIMS TO BUOY STEEL, ALUMINUM: Industry groups, clean energy advocates and business associations are linking arms in a new effort to reduce energy costs for domestic steel and aluminum producers they say are vital to the U.S. defense-industrial base and bolstering a domestic supply chain.
Forging the Future has its sights set on legislation and executive orders that would subsidize electricity for the heavy energy users to remain competitive with China — imports now comprise more than half the U.S. aluminum market, the coalition said. Its members include the Aluminum Association, iron manufacturer Electra, Securing America’s Future Energy, ClearPath and the American Council on Capital Formation.
Coalition leaders said Trump’s tariffs to penalize foreign competitors can only go so far with the price of U.S. energy spiking. Direct intervention to suppress energy prices is key for keeping not only the nation’s four remaining primary aluminum smelters online but also modernizing and expanding facilities, they add.
“That’s going to be the true differentiator,” said Joe Quinn, executive director of the SAFE Center for Strategic Industrial Materials. ACCF President George David Banks said the coalition will look to move policy through vehicles like the National Defense Authorization Act to make it easier to site new generation for facilities crucial for national security.
“The trade policy is important as a backstop, but you’ve got to have affordable, reliable energy,” Banks said. “And what I mean by affordable, I’m going to say kind of a dirty word in some circles: Subsidized. Heavily subsidized.”
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