of subject imports i think it may be helpful to look at this in two steps first whether the factual conditions in the current case require the sort of causation analysis described by the court in some of the past cases like gerald metals brodsky mittal and second of the answer that question is yes and whether or not the commission in fact engaged in that type of analysis so i was i was struck i guess by a series  supreme court cases gross against financial somebody and urge against united states in which the supreme court has said now repeatedly that the phrase i reasoned with has a very commission not find that regard less of a particular words have sufficient evidence to support that finding well it's interesting i obviously didn't brief the screen court cases just a different way of phrasing a proposition and when i look at the other adversely and the other factors in evidence that adversely affected the domestic solar panel industry they don't fully account for what happened to them but with respect to them though i do not think that that sort of logic can be gleaned from the commission overriding competitive factor which we have been arguing if you remove the subject imports well it could affect you have to look and see if you would if you removed the subject imports whether or hypothetical world concept or can you do that by analyzing what these other factors look like and how they would play out w requirement for what the commission has to do and there is nothing in the statute that says but for what we have is cases talk about it and some of them seem to  in the technical meaning of the hypothetical and some of them seem to use it differently meaning you've got to do an analysis showing that you know what the world would have looked like but you can when i rewound obviously does not have to use magic words and to switch train precedent is the most obvious on that but recall that in the swift train case the court of international trade did remain and the case to the commission to on that whole issue and took each one of the questions that your side had raised at allies and showed how the commission that dealt with it the what they did there was the traditional sort of reviewing going through the factors in the statute in a jumble if you will of three things domestic industry subject imports and this in the district grid parity in other words the competition from natural gas they acknowledged that the natural gas was there but the conditions simply said we don't see it as a justification for underselling and they made very short shrift of what we think is a fundamental issue and the fact is that if grid parity really did exist in this situation which is undisputed well back up in the way it's a critical finding a condition of competition finding by the commission say at there was this overriding competitive impetus to prepare you do not get that in a lot of these types of trade cases where there was a critical third element that was what started the unwind of cases in gerald metals and it continues through and even swift train obviously didn't repudiate that not to factor in this case from your viewpoint the impetus toward grid parity the competition by natural gas generating technologies they set the low price everybody was striving to get that you know according to your grid parity theme that the demand the market for c s v p products should have logically shrunk rather than expanded as it did it it expanded f viewers several exaggerates reasons you had you know the federal and state mandates you had improving technology that did enable the prices to decline you know depression probably still the kind costs  some to some degree the prices of solar energy to decline and you generally had a social awareness you know starting in two thousand and nine two thousand and ten that solar power renewable energy was the wave of the future so then why would the falling gas prices be an overriding factor if the market for c s v p product seemed to be pretty robust it was it was growing because it always is the records clear  this in the i t c founded as well they were always chasing the price of natural gas so they were successful to some extent but if prices were if you would remove subject imports you would still have this drive down of prices  parity level toward the level set by natural gas in the united states that is the ultimate determinant of what the prices are going to be there is a default to terminate the prices united states you can move subject merchandise if you still have injuries sustained by the domestic c s b b industry one the emergence of alternative energy technologies such as the increased supply and the climbing price of natural gas to the climbing cost the poly did he did and then we're not going to sit here and ask the commission get it right that's not our question i'm not asking you to do that may be very clear we're not asking this court to rebut the evidence we're not what we're asking you to commission had done a quote but for analysis which requires in the technical sense which requires the hypothetical situation without  you to do is remain and with this with the request that the oregon struction that the commission engage in some form of plot for analysis one can't look at what they've done never might want to see i t says you can't look at what the commission is done and say they engaged in a form of but for analysis especially according to what the supreme court said you can say they've done traditional others the morning may please the court my name is mary jane alice and i represent the actually the u s international trade commission as you've recognized in this case the commission unanimously determined that the domestic yes that is to our knowledge that is what the supreme court has said the supreme court cases as counsel has indicated were not subject to much discussion in this case although they had been in the swift train case we got a little yes  n the supreme court's cases had not been under discussion in this case although they had been in the underlying swith train case we do recognize what a but for at that a but for analysis is required however this court has also provided substantial guidance what a but for analysis means in the context of this statutory framework and i think that's the point that that would like to emphasize this morning what exactly that means so are you saying that th has articulated a conception of but for that's different from the conception of what for that's been expressed by the supreme court for other cases other statutes that used subject important to contribute more than minimally or tangentially to the injury and that's only a floor that's certainly not sufficient correct and in addition your honor this court has emphasized for example in the talk that what it is looking for is for the commission to focus on the cause of the injury and to provide full consideration to the causation issue and providing meaningful explanation of his conclusions supported by evidence in the record i can be free there to the course decisions of matal on pages eight seventy three seventy five seventy nine and then also the court's decision in swift train at thirteen fifty nine to thirteen sixty these are the same concepts that also appeared in commission in what it said adequately address but for causation because the commission fully by which i mean that the domestic industry would within the context of each of these statutory factors other factors that may have been injuring the domestic industry as you recognize this morning the court of international trade reviewed the commission's discussions of each of these other factors significantly declining polysilicon the commission how or however provided an extensive discussion with respect to each of these factors in the bottom line here was with respect to each of these arguments the record simply did not support a lot of the assumptions underlying the appellants arguments for example with respect to utilities they argued that the domestic industry was unable or unwilling to compete for sales to tell these and that any increase in subject imports nearly involve these in fact their record reflected in the commission stated that the domestic industry and subject producers both made quality products that were highly substitutable they both provides similar provide product forward basis would be expected to be correct but wrong for the first three years so that for the whole period of investigations it's long but not for the last bit and for going forward what  what the current data also show so for example if there is a sea change and there's a big difference at the end of the period then certainly the commission would need to explain any any such change that wasn't the case here in this particular case for example with respect to government incentives one of the arguments that respondents make is that government incentives were declining in fact the commission's record reflect it about the entire period investigation  program they argue that this program expired during the period of investigation in fact it wasn't supposed to expire until the last six months of the period investigation and it continued to have positive effects on demand in the u s market even after its expiration because in this case the for example utilities were allowed to start production or start assembly of their projects so long as their projects were completed by two thousand and sixteen so the effects of that program continue to have effects long after the end of the puritan best acacia moreover as the commission recognized demand continue to increase throughout this period so there wasn't a situation like that characterized by the chinese respondents where parity claims again as you heard you did a client of the cost of natural gas generated electricity really related to the increased hydraulic shale drilling in the united states they argue that any lost sales or lower prices were due to competition with natural gas and not subject imports again their arguments lacked factual support in the record as i mentioned the record showed a very favorable overall mix of incentives gas and the record showed that c s p v debate and was explosive during this period indeed when we surveyed questioning respondents about the role that demand for conventional energy products played relative to demand for p products the majority of them either responded that changes in the price of other electricity sources had no change in their demand for c s p products or actually increase their demand for c s people got us so again as you correctly asked this morning our respondents actually asking you to weigh the evidence the commission did acknowledge that there were other factors that collectively exerted downward pressure on prices but it reasonably found that subject imports which were substantial in the market and growing and competing throughout the market were a quote significant cause of the decline in the price of c s p products during the period of investigation just just for your information that you're just begun to eat into your friend's time thank you trade have provided more than sufficient analysis on this point as you know from this court's rulings the by reason of standard requires a showing the subject imports or more than a minimal or tangential cause of injury that's not all it requires that's like like you know that the two second statement about substantial evidence in the old supreme court case that say it's more than a scintilla which is true but doesn't begin to say what it is what it is it's actually something higher with reasonable yes and also the statement of administrative action states that the commission has to examine factors other than subject imports including things like non subject imports to find that in the absence of the subject imports the domestic the commission has a great deal of flexibility in terms of how it approaches the standard here by revealing the volume price impact of imports and the alternative causes it did conduct that required analysis wouldn't you think if that state this court case law in this area by reason i think causation do you think that we've already articulated some kind of dealt between but for causation and and our i don't think there's a delta between what courts have held in other areas of law versus international trade law i think this court is just providing guidance for when the commission does this very complex causation analysis what are the factors it has to look at and the alternatives it has to consider now there is the line of bratz and natal tests a very limited exception of course right stands for the process the prospect that if the dumped him product is a commodity product and thus there are non subject imports present then the commission has to determine whether subject imports would simply be replaced by non subject imports but what these respondents the chinese respondents are asking for is much different an expansion of the test not to say that solar panels are a commodity because they're clearly not but that the electricity that they produce is a commodity and therefore what the respondents are arguing is that because other things other than solar panels natural gas or oil of nuclear power can be used to generate electricity the commission had to look at whether the domestic industry would have been that when there are real world facts in the market to that effect but for causation the commission has to address that and that's equally true regardless of whether it's a commodity or whether it's anything else if the state of the real world facts simply ma i don't understand why you think there is a doctrinal difference well your honor that if there is nothing to address outside the subject merchandise because there is no market effect of something outside the subject mer that with therefore be replaced by non subject imports but but i agree that the commission has to look at the entire landscape it has to look at the other causes of injury and it certainly did so here with respect to grid parity it did get focused on this quite clearly in its analysis to say the impetus toward grid parity failed to explain the significant underselling by subject imports so it completely looked at that factor and looked at how demand for solar products increased as natural gas prices declined as your honor pointed out and demonstrating that those factors were decoupled so the evidence here was overwhelming there were compelling factual evidence and the announced she was also correct thank you thank you look at the grid they looked at competing industries gas can tell me that they love that the products that are in the market what is it that you think they would have added to their analysis had they done so well that out technical for analysis what what what v industry and the grid and natural gas based energy would the question is would the u s industry have been any better off if subject imports did not exist i understand yes the bad for clay that would have been but when you make that analysis what are you going to look at you would look at the same types of things but not really but not through the prism of it is how it is so how are subject imports behaving what are subject imports doing you don't care any more they're gone so you have to look at what would the economic conditions of the u s industry have been like in the absence of identified one possible form of concrete evidence and why isn't the right response to that is every single piece of evidence that you submitted in support of your proposition that your imports were not what  it's just said and the other thing they talk about is that demand going up anyway was discussed with judge trend there are reasons why demand could been going up so there really isn't a discussion i put it this way there are many many facts in this record but there is not an analysis of what the industry how the industry would have fared in the absence of subject  ultimate question is causation right that's your second question and any complex set of circumstances it's difficult to say what is coincidence and what is causation there's no formula for doing that it's a question of judgement it's a question of assessment and what they're all about what they're can look well in the kind of measure there would be  formulas for effect if one wants to engage in them but in any event one even if it's a question a judgment it has question judgment it has to be applied pursuant to a legal rule that will get you a meaningful result by which the by reason of standard is applied in a regular case of versus a case that has to trigger in conditions identified in matal and brusque and we think that the commission itself in this case has found