WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King and Congressman Bruce Poliquin announced today that the U.S. Department of Commerce has opened an investigation into the ongoing, unfair subsidies received by the Port Hawkesbury paper mill in Canada. The subsidies led Madison Paper Industries to curtail production and temporarily lay-off most non-salaried employees for two weeks this past January.

“For too long, these unfair subsidies have put Maine’s paper mills at a significant competitive disadvantage, threatening the jobs and the livelihoods of far too many people across our state,” Senators Collins and King and Congressman Poliquin said in a joint statement. “We are pleased the Commerce Department will investigate these practices, and we will continue to press the Administration to protect Maine workers and their jobs. It’s time that we level the playing field again for the hardworking men and women in paper mills across Maine.”

The Department of Commerce announced yesterday the initiation of a Countervailing Duty (CVD) investigation of imports of supercalendered paper from Canada. Supercalendered paper is an uncoated printing paper used to produce a variety of printed materials including magazines, catalogs, retail inserts, direct mail materials, corporate brochures, flyers, directories, and other high-run publications and advertising. 

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) is scheduled to make its preliminary injury determination on or before April 13, 2015.  If the ITC determines that there is a reasonable indication that imports of supercalendered paper from Canada materially injure, or threaten material injury to, the domestic industry, the investigation will continue and Commerce will be scheduled to make its preliminary CVD determination in May 2015, unless the statutory deadlines are extended.

Following an announcement in January that Madison Paper Industries, which owns a mill in Madison, would be forced to curtail productions for two weeks that month and temporarily lay off most non-salaried employees, citing the subsidies as a major reason, Senators Collins and King and Congressman Poliquin wrote to Commerce Secretary Penny Prtizker and urged her to do everything within her power to put an end to the subsidies. In her response, Secretary Pritzker said that the Department of Commerce would use the tools at its disposal to hold trading partners accountable. 

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