White House Chief of Staff to Visit Iron Range

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough will visit Virginia next week to discuss the mining layoffs on the Iron Range and the national steel crisis. 

McDonough will meet with affected workers, mining executives, business leaders and local elected officials at Range Community & Technical College on Tuesday, December 22. 

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, and Congressman Rick Nolan, along with Iron Range legislators sent a letter to President Obama urging help from the White House to fight back against the illegal dumping of foreign steel impacting the mining industry. 

Nearly 2,000 miners have lost their jobs this year. 

McDonough brought the issue to President Obama after speaking with Congressman Rick Nolan about the effect the steel crisis is having on the Iron Range. 

Nolan also introduced the Support Our Steelworkers Act in November to immediately halt imports of foreign steel for five years. 

The goal was to give the U.S. steel industry time to return to 100 percent production capacity.