Exporter Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret and petitioner Rebar Trade Action Coalition each contested an element of the Commerce Department's remand results in a case on the 2020 review of the countervailing duty order on Turkish rebar. In comments to the Court of International Trade laying out their disagreements, Kaptan challenged Commerce's use of a report from Colliers International as a benchmark in assessing the benefit Kaptan derived from the provision of land for less than adequate remuneration, while the coalition challenged the agency's finding that exemptions from Turkey's Banking Insurance and Transaction Tax were neither de jure nor de facto specific (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. United States, CIT # 23-00131).

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Thursday that staffing changes are coming to the FCC and that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is likely headed to the agency. Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez warned about the Donald Trump administration’s continuing moves against the federal workforce. Commissioners agreed on three wireless items (see 2502270042) and Calm Act rules at the meeting, as well as taking additional steps on robocalls.

Bills were introduced this week in the House and Senate to establish pilot programs to assess technologies for enhancing and speeding up cargo inspections at land ports of entry. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, led S. 703, with four Democratic co-sponsors and six Republican co-sponsors.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., reintroduced a bill Feb. 25 that would prevent Chinese Communist Party agents or businesses from buying real estate next to U.S. federal land. The No American Land for Communist China Act was referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The lawmakers had introduced the legislation last year, in the previous Congress (see 2408020055 and 2406120055).

Facing what it sees as an onerous and lengthy process of submarine cable system licensing and permitting, the submarine cable industry is hoping the new White House administration offers a path to streamlining and speedier turnarounds. The FCC approval process used to be roughly 14 months, but now it sometimes reaches two years, said Sarah McComb, Amazon Web Services (AWS) principal business developer overseeing its undersea cable development activity in the Pacific. "That's just too long," she told an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation webinar Wednesday.

The Commerce Department didn’t err in applying adverse facts available to exporter Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret for a subsidy program that the agency only became aware of due to a letter from the exporter it rejected as untimely, the U.S. and petitioner Rebar Action Coalition said Feb. 21 in two briefs opposing the exporter's motion for judgment (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT #24-00096).

The International Trade Commission improperly found that the U.S. industry was injured by shrimp imports and not by "conditions of competition unrelated to imports," a trade group for Indian shrimp exporters told the Court of International Trade in a Feb. 24 complaint. The trade group, the Seafood Exporters Association of India, also alleged that cooked frozen shrimp products "must be considered a separate like product distinct from uncooked frozen shrimp products" (Seafood Exporters Association of India v. United States, CIT # 25-00031).

Responding to a petitioner (see 2412300009), the U.S. said Feb. 21 that two mandatory respondents in a countervailing duty review of chlorinated isoscyanurates from China hadn’t earned an adverse inference for failing to provide the Commerce Department land-use contracts that would show they hadn’t been granted land for less-than-adequate remuneration (Bio-Lab v. U.S., CIT # 24-00118).

Representatives from fiber company Arcadian met with an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr about the importance of programmatic agreements for building out infrastructure. Arcadian asked in particular about potential agreements with the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service, said a filing posted Friday in docket 17-84. “Programmatic agreements would save time and money on projects by covering large swaths of land in one permit rather than having to pull permits for every small parcel involved in a project,” Arcadian said. “These agreements also have long-term benefits for future maintenance and repair work.”

Sens. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., and Jim Banks, R-Ind., and Rep. Dale Strong, R-Ala., reintroduced legislation Feb. 18 that would prohibit the sale of U.S. agricultural land to “foreign adversaries,” namely China, Iran, North Korea and Russia.