Countervailing duty petitioner Daikin America will appeal an October Court of International Trade decision sustaining the Commerce Department's decision to drop its subsidy finding against exporter Gujarat Fluorochemicals concerning a 30-year land lease to one of its affiliates, Inox Wind Limited, by India's State Industrial Development Corp. The trade court said the subsidy finding couldn't be legal due to Commerce's interpretation of its regulation, which says the agency will attribute -- to the affiliates' combined sales -- subsidies received by related input suppliers whose inputs are mainly dedicated to the production of downstream merchandise. The court ruled the provision of electricity is not primarily dedicated to the production of granular polytetrafluorethylene, the subject of the CVD investigation, adding that Commerce misunderstood the production chain (see 2310160026) (Gujarat Fluorochemicals v. United States, CIT # 22-00120).

Citing the need to speed up resolution of pole attachment disputes, FCC commissioners during their open meeting Wednesday unanimously adopted an order, declaratory ruling and Further NPRM revising rules to make for faster and cheaper broadband deployment. The item builds on a 2022 proceeding seeking comment on the commission's cost allocation principles (see 2203160031).

Broadcasters' diversity hiring practices drew polar opposite reactions on the two sides of the Capitol Monday, with senior House Communications Subcommittee member Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., joining FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks in pressing the FCC to revive its collection of equal employment opportunity workforce diversity data using Form 395-B. On the Senate side, Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is objecting to CPB rules for member stations’ diverse workforce policies.

Business groups are asking the leaders of the appropriations committees in Congress to support money at the border in a funding request that also includes funding for the war in Gaza and Ukraine. In a letter last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America, the National Council of Textile Organizations and the Airforwarders Association said CBP says it needs at least 4,000 more officers. The money in the request would cover 1,000 CBP officers.

California’s largest tribe rejected multiple AT&T recommendations for the state’s participation in the broadband, equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program. The California Public Utilities Commission received reply comments Thursday on volumes one and two of draft BEAD initial proposals (docket R.23-02-016). The Yurok Tribe disagreed with AT&T that project area units should be as geographically small as possible. "AT&T says that requiring minimum geographic units to be equivalent to a contiguous tribal land area could ‘eliminate synergies and increase costs,’ but that’s precisely the logic that has led to a patchwork of service on tribal lands, and the chronic underinvestment of incumbent providers in remote, rural tribal locations,” the tribe said. In addition, Yurok disagreed with AT&T that applicants should have prior experience with technology they plan to deploy. "This suggestion would, quite obviously, completely disqualify a number of new providers seeking to bring quality service to areas long ignored by incumbent providers from eligibility." And the tribe disagreed with the carrier to score more points to larger projects. "Doing so would reward incumbent providers at the cost of new providers, as incumbent providers are better positioned to develop larger projects that serve more locations.” AT&T made the suggestions in its opening comments (see 2311280053). The San Diego Association of Governments urged the CPUC to better prioritize equity. "The current scoring rubric allocates only 10 points out of 100 for projects targeting low-income and disadvantaged communities,” the San Diego group said. While CPUC must comply with NTIA rules, “we contend that this limited point allocation may not serve as a sufficient incentive for ISPs to invest in areas of utmost need.” USTelecom replied, "California should rely on ACP participation and a comparability test to meet BEAD’s affordability requirements and affordability should not be scored on a sliding scale.” If the state adopts low-cost and middle-income affordability plans, “providers should be able to adjust prices to capture inflation, cost of living increases and other costs outside of the providers control such as taxes,” said USTelecom: And don’t prioritize open access. The CPUC’s independent Public Advocates Office urged the CPUC to reject recommendations to modify "affordability requirements in ways that would prioritize private interests over the public interest.”

The Commerce Department reverted to a previously used land benchmark calculation for its 2017 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on solar cells from China. The court previously had sent back the land benchmark formula for violating the scope of an earlier remand order, telling Commerce to use the calculation from its first remand, in which the agency used a 2010 Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis (CBRE) land report to set the benchmark (see 2311170034) (Risen Energy Co. v. U.S., CIT # 20-03912).

The Customs Modernization bill introduced in the Senate allows CBP to access data from parties in the supply chain other than importers, allows those parties to update and amend their advance data, and authorizes a customs broker or importer of record to convert the pre-entry information into a certified entry filing.

The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:

African and Brazilian participants at the U.N. Climate Change Conference complained that the EU's due diligence requirement to certify that commodities were not grown on deforested land in the tropics (see 2112030047 and 2307270041) is burdensome to small farmers in their countries.

China's stranglehold on minerals used in electric vehicle battery-making, and their head start on making quality, affordable EVs makes U.S. and European firms anxious, panelists said at a Georgetown Business School webinar on the future of auto value chains.