An investigation by the U.S. Department of Commerce into whether imports of electrical steel components threaten national security is long overdue, local officials said.

Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced the investigation Monday.

Similar components are made by AK Steel's Butler Works and its plant in Zanesville, Ohio, which are owned by Cleveland-Cliffs of Ohio.

“I think it's long overdue,” said Dave Zarnick, president of the Butler Township commissioners.

“We have 1,400 jobs at stake here in Butler and 100 in Zanesville. AK Steel is vital to the community and national security. The electric steel produced here isn't produced anywhere else in the world. We have to rely on us producing this instead of foreign countries,” Zarnick said.

Jim Panei, president of United Auto Workers Local 3303, which represents plant employees, agreed with Zarnick.

“It was a great thing. It was long overdue,” Panei said about the investigation.

He credits U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-16th, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Lourenco Goncalves, Cleveland-Cliffs chairman and CEO, for their efforts to address imports.

Kelly organized a letter that 26 legislators signed and sent to the Commerce Department requesting the investigation, Panei said.

Zarnick said he has asked Lt. Gov. John Fetterman to request that Gov. Tom Wolf contact the White House to assist AK Steel.

Cleveland-Cliffs argues that Asian countries are circumventing tariffs on components by routing electrical steel through Mexico and Canada, where minimal processing occurs. The company warned that it would close both plants unless loopholes in tariffs are closed.

Closing the Butler plant would put employees out of work and impact other businesses, Zarnick said. He added that he contacts Kelly and Connor Lamb, D-17th, for updates.

“There would be a trickle down impact on many small businesses that supply AK and restaurants and shops. It would have a vital impact. We wholeheartedly support the workers of Local 3303,” Zarnick said.

County commissioners, township commissioners and Butler City Council also have supported company and union efforts to close tariff loopholes, he said.

“Lourenco Goncalves said he can't sustain losses. He said he'd shut down the plant. It was a major concern for everybody,” Panei said. “We talk to Mike Kelly on a weekly basis. I talk to Sen. Casey on a weekly basis. We've talked to anybody and everybody.”

Ross said the investigation will look into whether “imports of laminations for stacked cores for incorporation into transformers, stacked and wound cores for incorporation into transformers, electrical transformers and transformer regulators are being imported into the United States in such quantities or under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security.”

Transformers are part of the U.S. energy infrastructure. Laminations and cores made of grain-oriented electrical steel are critical transformer components. Electrical steel is used in power distribution transformers for all types of energy across the country.

An assured domestic supply of these products enables the United States to respond to large power disruptions affecting civilian populations, critical infrastructure, and U.S. defense industrial production capabilities, the department said in announcing the investigation.