The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) hailed Senate passage, by a vote of 75-20, of the conference report for the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015.

The measure includes the ENFORCE Act, which is critical to the steel industry to ensure that antidumping and countervailing duty orders against unfairly traded imports are being fully and vigorously enforced at the border.

“By approving the customs bill today a majority of U.S. Senators voted to ensure strong enforcement of our trade remedy laws,” said Thomas J. Gibson, president and CEO of AISI. “This is an important piece of legislation that gives U.S. manufacturing industries and their workers new tools to fight back against unfair trade.  Steel imports are decimating the American steel industry and it is imperative that we have the strongest tools and resources to fight back.”

The ENFORCE Act would create new procedures at Customs and Border Protection to address the evasion of antidumping and countervailing duty orders within set deadlines. “If we do not strongly enforce our trade laws,” said Gibson, “the domestic steel industry will continue to suffer harm. We appreciate the support of our steel champions in Congress and of the administration on this bill, and look forward to these provisions being signed into law and implemented as quickly as possible to help fight against the rampant evasion of trade remedy orders that continues to injure the steel industry.”

AISI is a trade group representing the North American steel industry and also plays a lead role in the development and application of new steels and steelmaking technology. AISI is comprised of 19 member companies and 125 associate members.