Nippon Steel gets airtime during Senate debate

(The Center Square) – Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey Jr. and his Republican challenger Dave McCormick agree on very few things.

Keeping U.S. Steel American-owned, however, is one of them. The company behind the eponymous “Steel City” may be a Pittsburgh icon no more if a controversial sale goes through.

U.S. Steel, founded in the city more than 120 years ago, said last month that without Japanese-owned Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion acquisition, it would relocate out of Pittsburgh – dealing an economic and symbolic blow to Pennsylvania.

The comment comes as multiple media reports suggest the Biden administration will soon collect on a promise to block the deal, a union-backed bipartisan move aimed at keeping the famed company domestically owned and operated.

Casey said on the debate stage Thursday that he, too, opposes the deal because it could put union workers in the region out of work.

“I want to make sure, at all costs, those steelworker jobs stay here,” he said. “They’re union jobs – I don’t like what I’ve been hearing from U.S. Steel in the last few years about moving those jobs to Arkansas, a nonunion state. That’s my prime concern … We cannot lose those jobs, it would be devastating for the Mon Valley and for Pennsylvania.”

The United Steel Workers Union represents 850,000 workers across the country, including some from Nippon, of which 4,000 work in Pennsylvania, Alabama, Virginia and West Virginia.

Not every worker opposes the deal, however. On Sept. 4, thousands of U.S. Steel employees rallied outside the company’s headquarters in Pittsburgh in support of the acquisition as a last-ditch effort to save thousands of jobs.

“We want elected leaders and other key decision makers to recognize the benefits of the deal as well as the unavoidable consequences if the deal fails,” said President and Chief Executive Officer of U.S. Steel David B. Burritt.

He asked other state and federal elected officials, including Gov. Josh Shapiro, to get on board.

A federal block means the company will “pivot away” from its blast furnaces, including the one at Mon Valley Works, which is slated for a $1 billion upgrade – pending the deal’s approval.

McCormick said, however, that lukewarm support from local officials and opposition from environmental groups sunk U.S. Steel’s own plans to invest in the facility in 2021.

“The reason was because the Allegheny County government blocked the new project on environmental grounds,” he said. “If I was the senior senator from Pennsylvania, I would be standing on the desk of the people in Allegheny County, getting that great investment and those jobs here.”

“This is the kind of failure of leadership that’s taking Pennsylvania in the wrong direction,” he added.

Nonetheless, McCormick opposes the deal on national security grounds. President Joe Biden has expressed similar concerns.