This morning, the House Steel Caucus  held a hearing entitled “Stabilizing Steel.”  The purpose of the hearing was to discuss the current state of the U.S. steel industry and manufacturing.  Constituents, steel industry experts, and steel industry officials all testified about the danger of losing the domestic steel industry and the impact that would have on our country. The economic downturn and a failure to adequately enforce our trade laws have had a staggering impact on steel production in the U.S. with an extensive amount of job loss as a result.  Entire communities are facing unprecedented challenges.  To illustrate this point, Richard McCormack, Editor & Publisher of Manufacturing & Technology News, read off a list of phrases used during the hearing to describe the difficulties faced by steel manufacturers and workers, including: • “scary time” • “devastation” • “can’t survive” • “lowest point in the history of the nation” According to Robert E. Scott of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), 5.3 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2000.  More specifically, the steel industry has lost nearly 53,000 direct jobs over that span, and 523,131 total jobs when including those which are supported by the industry and more indirectly by the wages spent on items such as groceries. Those testifying called for stronger enforcement of our trade laws to stem the flow of unfairly traded imports into the U.S.  Specifically, there were calls for efforts to address currency manipulation by the Chinese government and for the application of countervailing duties on non-market economies.  Mr. Scott of EPI cited a study produced by the Alliance for American Manufacturing which outlines the massive energy subsidies provided to Chinese steel producers by their government.  These subsidies exceeded $15 billion in 2007 alone. There were calls for continued investment in our infrastructure system and for the application of Buy America requirements to ensure that our tax dollars are used to put American workers to work at a time when capacity utilization is at an unprecedented low.  Thomas J. Gibson, President of the American Iron & Steel Institute, testified that capacity utilization is at just 47.1%, compared to 91% a year ago. The manufacturing sector continues to play a critical role in our economy with roughly 12 million workers.  The question moving forward is whether Congress and the Administration will find the political will to address these issues and ensure that American workers continue to produce steel and other manufactured items.