Kelly and other lawmakers in Pennsylvania and Ohio began publicly and privately lobbying the Trump administration for an investigation into the foreign steel imports. Closing the plants would have been especially devastating to Kelly's hometown, according to the report. The administration of President Donald Trump in 2018 instituted 25% tariffs on certain steel imports and expanded the tariff to some steel derivatives in 2020, but not grain-oriented electrical steel.Ĭleveland-Cliffs argued that its Butler and Zanesville plants would remain unprofitable without tariff protection. Cleveland-Cliffs purchased AK Steel in March 2020. In anticipation of its purchase of AK Steel, Ohio-based Cleveland-Cliffs threatened to close the only two plants in the United States where grain-oriented electrical steel is produced - the Butler Works plant and another plant that AK Steel owned in Zanesville, Ohio - unless the federal government extended existing or instituted new steel tariffs to protect the grain-oriented electrical steel from foreign competitors. The Butler Works plant produces grain-oriented electrical steel, which is used in electrical transformers in the country's electrical grid, therefore making domestic production of the component a matter of national security, the OCE report says. In September 2020, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was the first to report that the stock buy raised ethical questions. Mike Kelly for possible ethics infraction Probe: House committee investigating U.S. 'For years, Congressman Kelly has been a vocal leader to save the approximately 1,400 jobs at the Butler plant, including bipartisan legislation and letters,' the statement said. Kelly have been, and will continue to be, advocates and supporters of the Butler Works/Cleveland-Cliffs plant in Butler, where they are lifelong residents. 'Details published in news reports regarding those disclosures were found because the Congressman publicly reported his financial records. “Congressman Kelly has been open and transparent about his required financial disclosures during his decade in the United States House of Representatives, including the inquiry by the House Committee on Ethics,' Kelly spokesman Matt Knoedler said in the statement. Kelly's office issued a statement Thursday in response to the announcement. Mike Kelly Victoria Kelly Kelly's former chief of staff Matt Stroia and former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross refused to cooperate with the OCE's review. Kelly may have violated House rules, standards of conduct, and federal law,' the OCE report says. Kelly learned during his official job duties, then Rep. 'If this stock purchase was based upon confidential or material nonpublic information that Rep.

Share my wife