Mrvan used face time with Biden for Region

U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan, D-Highland, had the ear of President Joe Biden for about a minute Tuesday following the State of the Union Address in a moment caught on camera.

“I want to seize the opportunity to talk about the region every time I see the president of the U.S.,” Mrvan said.

He used his time before the president to thank him for recognizing organized labor by having an iron worker in the presidential box. Mrvan said the president Tuesday also announced a “Buy American” provision for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a measure that is huge for the region steel industry.

“I thanked him for that,” Mrvan said.

The Congressman also used the encounter to put a plug in for Northwest Indiana to be the site ultimately chosen as one of 10 hydrogen hub projects across the nation.

There are 33 communities vying to be the site of the transformational billion-dollar project that will create thousands of construction jobs and hundreds of sustainable jobs after that, he said.

The project ties into the steel industry and carbon capture and the future of making low-carbon steel.

“I have my best pitch for the region in order for us to be one of the 10 awards for the hydrogen hub,” Mrvan said.

He said the president “thanked me for my work on the Congressional Steel Caucus and basically said he would try his best to see someone from the Department of Energy to potentially come to the area in an effort to assist the bid for the hydrogen hub.”

The project is a bipartisan, statedriven effort, said Mrvan, who voted for the infrastructure act in the hope of landing a project like the hydrogen hub for Northwest Indiana.

“We are doing everything we

can to talk about the attractiveness of the region and the industry, the know-how … the employees in order to create this transformational hub,” Mrvan said.

He said Biden laid out a good blueprint on how to implement legislation such as the infrastructure act so it is advantageous and ensuring that this investment in infrastructure leads the world.

“It’s important to our workers, our families and the economy, not only locally but in the state and also in the Midwest and in our nation,” Mrvan said.

Randy Palmateer, business manager for the Northwestern Indiana Building & Construction Trades Council, said Biden has really gotten behind the unions in a way past presidents have promised but failed to do.

“He is the best president the building trades have ever had in the history of the country,” Palmateer said.

He said it is not just allocating funding for major projects, but it is embedding pro-labor policy into the tax code, such as the “Buy American” requirement for infrastructure projects, that will have long-ranging impacts.

Having the policy built into the code will make it more difficult for an anti-labor president to make an executive order that undercuts the unions.

Palmateer said Mrvan also has proved a strong supporter of the trades, which he said had thrown its support behind Mrvan’s challenger, Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott, in the primary.

Palmateer said McDermott had an impeccable track record with the trades in Hammond, and Mrvan, by design of his former position as North Township trustee at the time, did not.

That, Palmateer said, has changed. “Of course, we are very 100 percent behind Frank now,” he said. We’ve moved on. We will support Frank. He’s proven himself.”

Mike Millsap, District 7 director for the United Steelworkers, said the industry for the most part has been grateful for the measures taken by the president, but concerns remain in the tin market due to heavy imports from China.

Millsap also likes the “Buy American” provision enacted by the president.

“It’s absolutely going to not only be big for steel, but manufacturing as a whole in the U.S. I think will be positive,” Millsap said.