The Biden government is taking a key step to ensure that federal dollars support U.S. production of building material by issuing requirements on how projects in the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package should be funded.
The new guidance issued on Monday requires that material purchased, whether for a bridge, highway, water pipe or broadband Internet, be produced in the US. USA. However, the rules also establish a process for waiving those requirements in the event that there are not enough domestic producers or the material costs too much, with the aim of issuing fewer exemptions over time as US manufacturing capacity increases. UU.
“There are going to be additional opportunities for good jobs in the manufacturing sector,” said Celeste Drake, director of Made in America in the White House Office of Management and Budget.
President Joe Biden hopes to create more jobs, ease tensions in the supply chain, and reduce dependence on China and other nations with interests other than the United States. With inflation at a 40-year high before the 2022 midterm elections, it is betting that increased domestic production will ultimately reduce price pressures to mitigate the Republican attacks that its $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid package initially led to higher prices.
“From day one, every action I've taken to rebuild our economy has been guided by a principle: Made in America,” Biden said Thursday in Greensboro, North Carolina. “You need a federal government that doesn't just talk about buying American products, but actually takes action.”
Biden said that the approximately $700 billion that the government spends annually on purchasing goods is supposed to prioritize US suppliers, but regulations dating back to the 1930s were watered down or enforced in ways that masked the use of foreign imports.
The administration could not say what percentage of construction material for existing infrastructure projects is US-made, even though the federal government is already spending $350 billion on construction this year. The new guidelines would allow government officials to know how many dollars are going to American workers and factories.
In the bipartisan infrastructure package that was signed into law last November, there was a requirement that, as of May 14, “none of the funds” allocated to federal agencies for projects can be spent “unless all iron, steel, manufactured goods and building materials used in the project are produced in the United States.” That's according to Monday's 17-page guide.
The guide includes three standards for the exemption from these requirements: whether the purchase “would be incompatible with the public interest”; if the required materials are not produced “in sufficient and reasonably available quantities or of satisfactory quality”; or if American materials increase the cost of a project by more than 25%.
US manufacturers are missing some 170,000 jobs out of the 12.8 million factory jobs they had in 2019, as manufacturing jobs began to decline before the pandemic began. But the U.S. The US has 6.9 million fewer jobs in manufacturing compared to the 1979 peak, a loss caused by outsourcing and automation.
Getting more industrial jobs is likely to mean adding more factories and assembly lines, as manufacturers are operating at a capacity of 78.7%, which the Federal Reserve says is above the historical average.
(with information from AP)
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