Schatz co-sponsors bill to protect newspaper industry

U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz is co-sponsoring a bill to suspend newly imposed tariffs on Canadian newsprint that is driving up business costs for domestic newspapers, book publishers and commercial printers.

Schatz on Thursday signed onto the Protecting Rational Incentives in Newsprint Trade (PRINT) Act, which directs the U.S. Department of Commerce to study how tariffs on newsprint paper imported from Canada would affect the newspaper industry in the United States. The PRINT Act would suspend the tariffs imposed at the start of the year on imported uncoated ground-wood paper from Canada while the Commerce Department completes its study.

“Newspapers are an indispensable part of our democracy, but they are under threat,” Schatz said. “People are losing jobs. Communities are losing trusted sources for local news. There’s too much at stake for the Commerce Department to implement a tariff like this without first considering the impact. With this bill, American newspapers will be protected before we move forward.”

U.S. newspapers and printers have told Congress that the new tariffs, which increase the cost of imported newsprint by up to 32 percent, would jeopardize the viability of the industry and threaten the U.S. paper industry’s customer base.

“Outside of payroll, newsprint is our single biggest expense, and this tariff will cost us several million dollars more — if we can even get the supply we need,” said Dennis Francis, president of Oahu Publications Inc. and publisher of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, The Garden Island, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald and West Hawaii Today. “The hardship is very real, and as the publisher of four of the five daily newspapers in Hawaii, I thank Sen. Schatz for his efforts to get this act reversed.”