NAM highlighted the impact on Momentive, a specialty chemicals and materials producer with a presence in 21 states, including manufacturing facilities in New York, Ohio, West Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Oregon, Indiana and California. Roger McCrary, Momentive’s Vice President for Global Trade Management, noted the trade-offs that companies must make when Congress fails to renew GSP:

“Our ability to remain an innovative, cutting-edge American company requires access to affordable raw materials. With the increase in tariffs resulting from GSP’s expiration, we need to cut from other parts of our budget, such as R&D. That has an impact on our bottom line and future products.”

These trade-offs are faced by all companies, not just manufacturers. Some companies cut R&D. Others reduce purchases (and limit future profit potential), while others still must lay off workers. In each of these cases, though, the result is clear: even a temporary GSP expiration can have a lasting impact.

Nearly 340 organizations in 41 states (plus DC) have now joined the supporter list. You can see them all here. If you’re not on the list but want Congress to renew GSP, be sure to add your name here so we can keep highlighting the importance of GSP to the different states and congressional districts.

What Do We Do?

At the most basic level, we make sure they know that GSP is scheduled to expire on July 31.  Sounds obvious, but… Congress deals with many, many issues and if GSP importers don’t remind them about GSP, who will?

We also highlight some key facts and figures from our GSP Annual Report.

Most importantly, we show them the local impacts of GSP.  For both of today’s meetings, that involved our new 2012 Ohio report:

Since our meetings were on the House as opposed to the Senate side, we used the Panjiva import/export database to find constituent companies importing goods receiving duty-free treatment because of GSP.

For Ohio’s 16^th District, this includes well-known companies like Energizer, which imports batteries from Indonesia, and Moen, which imports faucet parts from Thailand and Turkey, as well as smaller companies like Zibex, which imports chemicals from India.  Here’s what the district-specific information for Ohio’s 12^th District looked like:

So when we set up meetings, drilling down to the most local level possible is always our goal.  Tomorrow, we’ll talk about why it is so important.

Ohio companies imported an estimated $627 million under GSP in 2011, saving them on average 3.3%. India was the most important source of GSP imports, accounting for about 28 percent of the tariff savings. Lenses were Ohio’s top import under GSP in 2011 and would have faced average tariffs of 2% without GSP.

Yet GSP is set to expire on July 31, 2013, and companies could face tariffs higher tariffs starting on August 1 if Congress does not pass legislation renewing GSP. When GSP expired at the end of 2010, American companies paid nearly $2 million per day, every day, until Congress finally acted 11 months later!

This graphic shows just some of the negative impacts from the last GSP expiration. It also helps explain why more than 335 companies and associations – including at least 26 in Ohio – joined the 2011 GSP Supporter List urging renewal of the program when it last expired.

Are you an Ohio company that would be hurt by GSP expiration? If so, please take 30 seconds to let Congress know by adding your name to our free 2013 GSP Supporter List right now.