Information provided by NBB

The International Trade Commission (ITC) voted 4-0 in favor of the National Biodiesel Board (NBB) Fair Trade Coalition’s position that the industry has suffered because of unfairly dumped imports of biodiesel from Argentina and Indonesia.

Last month, the Commerce Department calculated final dumping rates ranging from 60.44 percent to 86.41 percent for Argentine producers, and 92.52 percent to 276.65 percent for Indonesian producers. The ITC’s final vote today was the last remaining procedural hurdle before the U.S. Commerce Department could issue final antidumping orders.

Once the Commerce Department publishes final antidumping orders, this will conclude the process for the initial round of administrative proceedings on both the antidumping and the parallel countervailing duty petitions filed in March 2017. Parties can appeal these decisions in the Court of International Trade in New York. In fact, we have already seen several parties file in that court to contest the findings in the countervailing duty cases; we expect the same will happen in the antidumping cases. This requires a new round of legal defenses and strategies moving forward but all duties for both cases remain in place throughout any appeals proceedings.

Why did NBB file these petitions? What was the problem? The coalition outlined its case before the ITC Commissioners last fall. Essentially, the U.S. government found that a flood of dumped and subsidized imports from Argentina and Indonesia resulted in market share losses and depressed prices for domestic producers. These imports have severely injured American manufacturers and workers. Specifically, biodiesel imports from Argentina and Indonesia surged by 464 percent from 2014 to 2016, taking 18 percentage points of market share from U.S. producers. These surging, low-priced imports prevented producers from earning adequate returns on their substantial investments and caused U.S. producers to pull back on further investments to serve a growing market.

What did NBB to the press? “This vote today finalizes the case to address the harm that unfair trade practices have had on the U.S. biodiesel industry,” said Donnell Rehagen, chief executive officer of NBB. “Foreign producers dumping product into American markets below cost has undermined the jobs and environmental benefits that U.S. biodiesel brings to the table. Establishing a level playing field for true competition in the market will allow the domestic industry the opportunity to put to work substantial under-utilized production capacity.”

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