Washington – The Biden administration is taking a key step in ensuring that federal dollars will support U.S. manufacturing: issuing requirements on how projects funded by the $ 1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package comes from its building material.
The new guide, published Monday, requires that material purchased, whether for a bridge, a road, a water pipe, or broadband Internet, be produced in the United States. However, the rules also set out a process for waiving these requirements in the event that they are not sufficient. domestic producers or the material costs too much, aiming to issue fewer exemptions over time as U.S. manufacturing capacity increases.
“There will be additional job opportunities in the manufacturing industry,” said Celeste Drake, director of Made in America at the White House Office of Management and Budget.
President Biden hopes to create more jobs, ease supply chain tensions and reduce dependence on China and other nations with divergent interests from Americans. With inflation up to 40 years ahead the 2022 midterm electionsbets that more domestic production will eventually reduce price pressures to curb Republican attacks that its $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package initially led to higher prices.
“From day one, all the action I’ve taken to rebuild our economy has been guided by a principle: Made in America,” Mr. Biden said Thursday in Greensboro, North Carolina. “We need a federal government that not only deals with buying American, but actually acts.”
Biden said the government’s $ 700 billion in annual procurement of goods is supposed to be a priority for U.S. suppliers, but regulations dating back to the 1930s have been softened. ‘have applied in ways that mask the use of foreign imports.
The administration could not say what percentage of the construction material for existing infrastructure projects is manufactured in the United States, although the federal government is already spending $ 350 billion on construction this year. The new guidelines would allow government officials to know how many dollars go to U.S. workers and factories.
In the bipartisan infrastructure package that became law last November, there was a requirement that as of May 14, “none of the funds” allocated to federal agencies for projects could be spent “unless all the 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 guidance includes three standards for exemption from these requirements: whether the purchase “would be inconsistent with the public interest”; if the necessary materials are not produced “in sufficient and reasonably available quantities or of a satisfactory quality”; or if U.S. materials increase the cost of a project by more than 25%.
U.S. manufacturers have about 170,000 jobs below the 12.8 million factory jobs held in 2019, as manufacturing jobs began to decline before the pandemic began. But the U.S. has 6.9 million fewer manufacturing jobs compared to the 1979 peak, a loss caused by outsourcing and automation.
Getting more industrial jobs would probably mean adding more factories and assembly lines, as manufacturers operate at a capacity of 78.7%, which the Federal Reserve notes is above the historical average.
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