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JOINT RESOLUTION SUPPORTING MAINE CEMENT MANUFACTURING AND OPPOSING SUBSIDIZED FOREIGN CEMENT IMPORTS
WHEREAS, the Dragon Products Company cement plant in Thomaston is the only cement manufacturer in Maine and in all of New England; and
WHEREAS,  Dragon Products Company directly employs over 100 citizens of the State in the process of manufacturing cement from limestone and Dragon Products Company's manufacturing operations directly or indirectly support over 500 Maine jobs; and
WHEREAS,  the Canadian Province of Quebec has subsidized the construction of McInnis Cement's new 2,000,000-ton per year capacity cement manufacturing plant in Port-Daniel-Gascons, Quebec; and
WHEREAS,  both McInnis Cement executives and Quebec officials have stated publicly that there is no Canadian market for the new plant's cement production and that over 90% of the new plant's production will be exported to the United States to compete directly with Dragon Products Company and other domestic cement manufacturers; and
WHEREAS,  McInnis Cement has completed construction of a deep-water cement import terminal in Providence, Rhode Island to serve the Boston, Massachusetts and southern New England cement markets and is building a 2nd deep-water cement import terminal in the Bronx, New York City to serve the New York and New Jersey cement markets; and
WHEREAS,  McInnis Cement started manufacturing cement in July 2017 and shipped its first vessel of subsidized Canadian cement to its Providence terminal in August 2017; and
WHEREAS,  the subsidized Canadian cement being exported by McInnis Cement to the United States poses a threat to the continued operations of the Dragon Products Company cement plant in Thomaston and the hundreds of Maine jobs directly or indirectly supported by the plant; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED: that We, the Members of the One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Legislature now assembled in the Second Regular Session, on behalf of the people we represent, take this opportunity to:
1. Condemn any violation of international trade laws and treaties between the United States and Canada;
2. Express our full support for the efforts that may be undertaken by domestic cement manufacturers to bring countervailing duty and antidumping petitions against McInnis Cement before the United States Department of Commerce and the United States International Trade Commission;
3. Support international trade litigation against McInnis Cement through all appropriate means to preserve Maine cement manufacturing jobs and to enforce the international rule of law against subsidizing exports and dumping products into the United States; and
4. Support the efforts of Maine businesses and local governments to purchase, to the maximum extent possible, Maine-manufactured and other domestically manufactured cement for use in all public and private construction projects across the State.