Energy and Climate Change

Steel is an essential material for modern society and today’s innovative steel products help our customers, and ultimately consumers, reduce their energy and carbon footprints. Not only is steel is 100 percent recyclable, but AISI member companies have reduced their energy intensity per ton of production by 35 percent and CO₂ emissions intensity by 37 percent in the past three decades. If Congress considers legislation related to climate change policy, AISI urges the President and the Congress to implement the following principles to maximize the steel industry’s role in reducing global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while minimizing negative impacts on domestic production and employment:

• Ensure that any legislation on GHG emissions includes provisions to address the direct and indirect compliance costs to industry and maintains the competitiveness of the domestic steel industry in the global marketplace against steel producers that operate without similar restrictions.
• Include in any climate legislation a strong and effective border adjustment provision that requires imported energy-intensive goods to bear the same climate policy-related costs as competing U.S. goods.
• Adopt policy measures that acknowledge that, to further lower energy intensity and to make additional progress on emission reductions, new processes for steelmaking must be developed that significantly reduce GHG emissions through minimizing reliance on carbon-intensive fuels.

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