“No, I have to acknowledge this is news to me, not something I focused on, and I very much appreciate you bring it to my attention,” Blinken said when Congressman Dan Meuser asked him whether he was aware that 90 percent of anthracite coal used in the US steel industry come from Russia.
During a US House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Meuser described the situation with the coal supply in the United States as a threat to national security.
Meuser said over the past five years Pennsylvania anthracite production shrunk by 20 percent while the total sales of Russia anthracite increased from 6 million tones in 2016 to 22 million tones in 2020, or 12 times higher than the domestic usage in the United States.
“I am concerned Russia is attempting to undermine our domestic supply which creates a national security, as well as a threat to our economy, that does in fact need our attention,” Meuser said.
The congressman also called upon Blinken to look closer into the matter of allegedly “very questionable” and “illegal” dumping of Russian anthracite in the United States.