U.S. delays Canada lumber anti-dumping decision

The Commerce Department said it agreed to a request by the American lumber industry to delay an anti-dumping decision until Sept. 24 in a softwood lumber dispute with Canada. It also said Canada's maritime provinces were not included in the case. The delay marks the second time the Commerce Department has postponed issuing rulings in the case, brought by U.S. companies who claim that Canada unfairly subsidizes its lumber industry and is illegally dumping lumber in the United States. A decision had been expected around Sept. 10 in the anti- dumping portion of the complicated trade case. U.S. lumber companies have asked the federal government to impose anti-dumping duties of up to 38%.

Canada denies any unfair trade practices. The Commerce Department, which announced the delay in a Federal Register notice, said it was requested by the U.S. lumber companies that initiated the trade case. "It's an extremely complicated case and it takes a lot of time to sort through all the information,'' said Deborah Regan, a spokeswoman for the U.S. lumber industry group Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports. "It's a timing issue based on how much (paperwork) is being filed, not an indication of which way the case is going,'' Regan added. Separately, Commerce said it would exempt Canada's maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland from the trade investigation. That decision came as no surprise to the U.S. lumber industry group, which said it had not expected the maritime provinces to be subject to any potential duties. Canada's Atlantic provinces were also exempted from the 1986 U.S.-Canada softwood trade pact.

That pact, which expired March 30, limited Canada's annual duty-free softwood lumber shipments to 14.7 billion board feet. Last week, the Commerce Department delayed until Aug. 9 its preliminary ruling on whether countervailing duties should be applied to Canadian softwood lumber imports. U.S. lumber companies and labor unions asked the government to slap Canadian lumber with countervailing duties of 39.9%. The Canadian government said last week that monthly lumber trade data issued by the U.S. Commerce Department showed Canadian shipments have not flooded the U.S. market since the export control pact ended in March. The monthly data showed Canada's June shipments to the United States of spruce, pine and fir fell an unadjusted 11.4% from May.