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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 234 / Thursday, December 9, 2021 / Rules and Regulations Why is Commerce publishing this interim final rule?
Commerce is publishing this interim final rule to remove a subset of GAEs 26 GAEs for steel and 4 GAEs for aluminum added in the December 14
rule after public comments on the December 14 rule and subsequent Commerce analysis of data in the Section 232 Exclusions Portal identified these HTSUS codes as not meeting the criteria for inclusion as a GAE. These cases include HTSUS codes with exclusion requests that recently received objections and/or denials in the Section 232 Exclusions Portal.
Commerce is removing these GAEs in this interim final rule to ensure that only those GAEs that meet the stated criteria from the December 14 rule will continue to be included as eligible GAEs.

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What is the key change included in this interim final rule?
This interim final rule is being published to make the following key change to the Section 232 exclusions process: As described above, the December 14 rule included adding 123
GAEs. The addition of GAEs improved the efficiency and effectiveness of the Section 232 exclusions process for certain steel and aluminum articles under select HTSUS codes that had not received objections from domestic industry. Commerce determined that it could authorize imports under GAEs for these specified articles as defined by HTSUS codes for all importers rather than requiring each importer to submit an exclusion request.
Subsequently, based on Commerces review of the public comments received in response to the December 14 rule and additional analysis conducted by Commerce of Section 232 submissions, Commerce determined that a subset of the GAEs added in the December 14 rule do not meet the criteria for inclusion as a GAE and should therefore be removed.
Commerce is removing these GAEs in todays rule to ensure that only those GAEs that meet the stated criteria from the December 14 rule will continue to be included as eligible GAEs. This interim final rule removes 30 of the GAEs that were added to the regulations in the December 14 rule, consisting of 26 GAEs for steel GAE.3.S:
7220900060, GAE.7.S: 7227901060, GAE.14.S: 7215500018, GAE.16.S:
7228501040, GAE.23.S: 7220206010, GAE.27.S: 7219320020, GAE.33.S:
7304515005, GAE.34.S: 7219330025, GAE.35.S: 7217901000, GAE.37.S:
7217108030, GAE.38.S: 7212200000, GAE.39.S: 7217204560, GAE.52.S:

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7219220040, GAE.53.S: 7219320038, GAE.54.S: 7219320045, GAE.55.S:
7219350005, GAE.56.S: 7219320036, GAE.60.S: 7225501110, GAE.68.S:
7302101015, GAE.71.S: 7217304541, GAE.75.S: 7219210005, GAE.76.S:
7304293160, GAE.78.S: 7216400010, GAE.87.S: 7304293180, GAE.92.S:
7208390015, and GAE.98.S:
7229200015 and 4 GAEs for aluminum GAE.2.A: 7607205000, GAE.11.A: 7616995170, GAE.14.A:
7601209095, and GAE.15.A:
7616995160. Because these GAEs do not meet the established criteria, Commerce is publishing this interim final rule to remove these thirty GAEs.
This interim final rule makes no additional changes to the other 93 GAEs that will continue to remain in supplements no. 2 and no. 3. This revision further ensures the Section 232
exclusions process is consistent with the rationale for the import restrictionsprotecting U.S. national securitywhile increasing the efficiency of the exclusion process.
Public Comments and BIS Responses The public comment period on the December 14 rule closed on February 12, 2021. BIS received thirty-five public comments on the interim final rule.
GAEs That Received Objections and/or Denials Comment a1: GAEs did not follow the criteria stated in the December 14
rule because some GAE HTSUS codes received objections and/or denials.
Several comments referenced the criteria Commerce included in the December 14 rule detailing why certain HTSUS codes were selected for GAEs.
Specifically, these commenters noted that according to the Department, the GAEs address a long-standing request from public comments of exclusion requesters to create a more efficient process to approve certain exclusions for use by all importers where Commerce has determined that no objections will be received and where it is warranted to approve an exclusion for all importers to use. These commenters stated that this is not the case because the GAE list from the December 14 rule included several HTSUS codes for which domestic producers submitted an objection, covering more than a dozen GAEs. These same commenters noted that the GAE list also included several HTSUS codes for which the Department had denied exclusion requests. For these reasons, these commenters believe the Departments GAE list is, therefore, flawed.
BIS response: Commerce will continue to apply the criteria that were
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included in the December 14 rule.
Commerce agrees that a subset of GAEs included in the December 14 rule did not meet the stated criteria for inclusion as a GAE. The criteria in the December 14 rule need to be followed to ensure that GAEs can be implemented in a way that improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the Section 232
exclusions process without undermining the effectiveness of the tariffs and the national security objectives that the tariffs are attempting to address. Commerce will act to remove or revise GAE entries once Commerce becomes aware of GAEs that do not meet the stated criteria for inclusion.
Comment a2: Data from Section 232 Exclusions Portal demonstrating objections were received. Commenters opposed to the GAEs highlighted that a review of the Section 232 Exclusions Portal shows that over 70 exclusion requests involving HTSUS provisions included on supplements no. 2 and no.
3 in the December 14 rule had objections filed and, in a number of cases, the requests were denied by Commerce. Commenters noted that despite these findings the HTSUS codes were included in the December 14 rule as eligible GAEs. Some of these commenters included detailed screen shots or other information taken from the Section 232 Exclusions Portal to support their comments.
BIS response: Commerce agrees with these commenters that the data in the Section 232 Exclusions Portal indicates that certain HTSUS codes do not meet the criteria for inclusion on the list of GAEs. As described below in greater detail, the difference between the stated criteria in the December 14 rule and the published list of GAEs occurred due to activity in the Section 232 Exclusions Portal which occurred after the baseline date used by Commerce for identifying which HTSUS codes had not received objections and/or denials and thus were eligible for inclusion as GAEs. As described below, Commerce has made internal process changes to ensure that the rulemaking process for all future rules adding new GAEs will include review immediately prior to publication for any new rule adding additional GAEs.
Comment a3: Including steel or aluminum articles in GAEs that had received objections and/or denials is unfair and contrary to the objectives of the Section 232 process. Some commenters indicated that it is unfair to companies who filed objections, after which the related exclusion requests were denied, to allow the same steel or aluminum articles to be eligible for GAEs. These commenters were also
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