As part of its ongoing efforts under the new Miscellaneous Tariff Bill (“MTB”) process, the U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”) announced last Friday that it would accept additional public comments on certain MTB petitions. As reported previously, the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act of 2016 (the “Act”) required the ITC to submit a preliminary report to the House Ways & Means and the Senate Finance Committees for the purpose of providing Congress with information on the MTB petitions that were filed with the ITC.

In relevant part, Section VI of the ITC’s preliminary report identifies the petitions that the agency does not recommend for inclusion by Congress in any MTB (“Category VI MTB Petitions”). The ITC has decided to solicit additional comments for the limited purpose of developing further information on Category VI MTB Petitions. In doing so, the ITC explained that it “will only accept information from the public that relates to its decision to place these petitions into Category VI”, and that the ITC “will not consider comments that relate to petitions listed under categories I, II, III, IV, and V.” As specified by the Act, Category I relates to petitions that meet the requirements of the Act without modification. Categories II, III, and IV relate to petitions that meet the requirements of the Act with certain modifications. Category V addresses petitions that do not contain the information required by the Act or that were not filed by a “likely beneficiary” of the requested duty suspension or reduction (another requirement of the Act).