Comment from California Surfaces

**The following Request to Appear is submitted as text below and also attached as a document for the record: Re: Potential Action: Quartz Surface Products REQUEST TO APPEAR AT PUBLIC HEARING Dear Chair DiPlacido, I’m writing to request to appear at the June 16, 2026, hearing before the Trade Policy Staff Committee on the above referenced matter, on behalf of my company, a small business as defined by the SBA. As requested, here is a summary of what I would like to speak about during the hearing. My name is Peter Dominguez, and I’m the President of California Surfaces, a countertop fabrication and installation company in Los Angeles with approximately 70 employees. We’re proud to be an American Manufacturer. We build and install countertop surfaces in new homes, apartments, schools, hotels and airports throughout Southern California and beyond. We have been purchasing domestic and imported quartz slabs for over 15 years. At the USITC remedy hearing on April 14, I testified as a non-party witness and urged the Commission to exclude amorphous silica slabs from whatever remedy it imposed. Since the USITC submitted its report to the President, a critical development occurred: on May 21, 2026, California's Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted to initiate emergency rulemaking toward prohibiting the fabrication and installation of engineered stone containing more than 1% crystalline silica. The only readily available material that meets my customers’ existing specifications and would be permissible under California’s forthcoming quartz ban is an amorphous silica slab (sometimes called crushed glass or mineral surface products). For a California fabricator, the choice is no longer between imported quartz and domestic quartz. Within the four-year relief period the President is now weighing, my shop will not be permitted to cut crystalline quartz at all, regardless of where it was made. A safeguard works by making imports more expensive so that buyers shift to domestic supply. That logic depends on there being a domestic supply to shift to. For amorphous silica slabs, there is not one at commercial scale. No domestic producer currently manufactures these products a scale sufficient to serve the demand that California will soon require, and none has committed to doing so. The limited domestic production that exists depends on imported material inputs and covers a small handful of colors. Imports are the only significant source of amorphous silica slabs available to California fabricators today. I understand why petitioners opposed any exclusion. Crushed glass was used in the past to dodge duties on quartz from China, and an open hole in the scope is a real risk. But refusing to exclude anything is not the only way to manage that risk. Commissioner Kearns recommended that the President authorize a product exclusion process for cases of a demonstrated lack of domestic production, or a critical short supply from domestic sources, for a particular product. Amorphous silica slabs are the clearest case that process was built for. I am asking the President to adopt the product exclusion process Commissioner Kearns recommended and to apply it to amorphous silica slabs, defined as slabs containing no more than one percent crystalline silica, from the outset of the relief period. Doing it at the outset is what matters. If fabricators have to wait out a case-by-case petition while the California mandate takes effect, the relief arrives after the harm is already done. This is a remedy that can protect domestic slab producers from injurious imports of crystalline quartz without taxing the best available alternative to California fabricators. I appreciate the Committee's consideration, and I look forward to testifying on June 16. Respectfully submitted, Peter Dominguez President California Surfaces 13700 Borate Street Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670 (562) 921-9549 peterd@calsurfaces.com