WEATHERSFIELD Support U.S. titanium industry, coalition urges

RMI Titanium gets about one-third of its sales from defense contracts.
By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
WEATHERSFIELD -- American-made titanium won a skirmish last year in its long-standing battle to ward off Russian-made competition.
Now officials at RMI Titanium in Weathersfield are working with a delegation of Ohio lawmakers led by Congressman Tim Ryan to make sure that victory isn't snatched away.
Tim Rupert, president and chief executive of RMI's parent company RTI International Metals, said he and officials from two competing domestic titanium makers met with Undersecretary of Defense Michael Winn in Washington, D.C., this week.
Ryan, of Niles, D-17th, said in a press release that he organized the meeting so the manufacturers could talk with Winn about the need to support the American titanium industry.
Titanium Metals Corp., based in Colorado, and Allegheny Technologies of Pennsylvania were also represented.
Companies' goal
The titanium companies want to ensure that defense contracts abide by the Berry Amendment, a 1973 law which generally prohibits the use of foreign goods in military aircraft, ships and weaponry.
The issue is important to RMI, which gets about a third of its sales from defense contracts, Rupert said. Titanium is often used in military equipment because of its strength and light weight.
An effort supported by the Bush administration that would have weakened the Berry Amendment ended unsuccessfully last year. The law was also challenged in 2002, when the Defense Department won the right to use Russian-made titanium in the production of some tanker planes for the U.S. Air Force.
Ryan said he penned a letter to President Bush this week, signed by a delegation of nine other Democratic and Republican Ohio members of Congress, asking that the Berry Amendment be preserved and followed when defense contracts are awarded.
"Last year, President Bush and his administration tried to dismantle the Berry Amendment ...," Ryan said. "This year, we are starting early to inform President Bush that American soldiers should be using American equipment."
Another concern
A second issue of concern to the titanium industry, Rupert said, is what he called "an inverted tariff system" that protects foreign companies while penalizing American manufacturers.
Russian titanium makers can export unlimited amounts of titanium products into the United States, duty-free, he explained. U.S. companies must pay a 15-percent duty when they import titanium sponge, however. Titanium sponge is a raw material used to produce titanium which U.S. makers must import from Japan and Kazakhstan because it is unavailable here.
The discrepancy makes it harder to keep U.S.-made titanium priced competitively when compared with the duty-free Russian titanium.
Rupert said RMI officials also met with several lawmakers and government officials while they were in Washington to discuss the titanium tariff issue. "We talked to anybody who would listen," he said.
Meanwhile, salaried workers are continuing to operate the RMI plant, Rupert said, while about 380 hourly RMI workers, members of United Steelworkers of America Locals 2155 and 2155-7, walk informational picket lines outside. The workers have been locked out since Oct. 26. Rupert said contract talks are continuing.
vinarsky@vindy.com