Congressman Mike Michaud has joined with fellow
members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to
introduce a bill to create jobs and boost the domestic manufacturing
sector by updating the rules governing federal transportation and
infrastructure investments. Despite current statutory "Buy America"
requirements mandating that all steel, iron, and manufactured goods used
to construct federal highway projects are produced in the U.S.,
loopholes have allowed the manufacturing of major transportation
projects to be sent abroad.
"It's long past time that we ensure our nation's transportation
investments promote domestic job and business growth to the greatest
extent possible," said Michaud. "I strongly believe, and responses to my
manufacturing survey confirmed, that we need to see more things stamped
with 'Made in America' in order to promote longer term economic growth.
I'm hopeful this commonsense proposal to help create jobs can be
included in the transportation bill that Congress takes up next year."
According to the House Transportation Committee, in July, workers for
a Chinese state-owned company loaded four steel modules, weighing a
combined 5,300 tons, onto a ship for a 22-day journey across the Pacific
to be used as the final component of California's largest public works
project in its history. A total of 43,000 tons of steel for the $6.3
billion project replacing the 2.2-mile East Span of the San
Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge will be stamped "Made in China," but paid
for by U.S. taxpayers. This project employed 3,000 workers in China -
jobs that should have gone to American workers.
The bill introduced by Michaud and his colleagues is called the
"Invest in American Jobs Act of 2011" (H.R. 3533) and strengthens Buy
America requirements for investments in transportation and
infrastructure in an effort to put more Americans back to work. The bill
ensures that all of the steel, iron, and manufactured goods used to
construct these projects, which are financed by U.S. taxpayers, are
produced in the United States. More specifically, the bill:
Strengthens existing Buy America requirements for investments in
highway, bridge, public transit, rail, and aviation infrastructure and
equipment to ensure that all of the steel, iron, and manufactured goods
used in these projects are produced in the United States;
Applies Buy America requirements to other transportation and
infrastructure investment, including rail infrastructure grants, loans,
and loan guarantees, Clean Water State Revolving Fund grants, and
Economic Development Administration (EDA) grants; and
Requires Federal agencies to justify any proposed waiver of the Buy
America requirements and ensures that the American public has notice of
and an opportunity to comment on any proposed waiver prior to it taking
effect.
