Biden backs Mack...and other US manufacturers
UNITED STATES PRESIDENT JOE Biden has paid a visit to a Mack Trucks assembly plant in Pennsylvania, reckoned he liked what he saw…and used the occasion to make a statement: “Buy American.”
And made it clear that he’s a strong proponent of Made in America – seeing domestic manufacturing as a means of securing critical supply chains.
Biden promises that under his watch, Buy American rules – long enshrined in US regulations intended to ensure that government funds are spent, first and foremost, on “American made” products – will be toughened up.
Biden said his administration is making the biggest enforcement changes to the Buy American Act in 70 years, to ensure that “loopholes” that allow the government to issue too many exemptions to the regulation are closed.
He’s also considering raising the threshold of the percentage of US-made parts in a product for it to be considered American made, for the purposes of deciding government contracts.
When there are no US-based companies making a product the government is purchasing, the government can issue a waiver to purchase those goods offshore.
The waivers have resulted in tens of billions of dollars worth of purchases from nonAmerican sources: “Buy American has become a hollow promise,” Biden said, adding: “But my administration is going to make Buy American a reality.”
He’s created a Made in America office in the White House to oversee a toughening-up of the regulation – and “putting the weight of the federal government behind that commitment.
“If American companies know that we’re going to be buying from them, they’re going to be more inclined to hire and make key investments in the future in their companies, like you’re doing here.”
In Biden’s tour of the plant he saw firsthand Mack’s first fully electric heavy-duty truck, the Mack LR Electric battery-electric refuse truck.
Under his Build Back Better plan, Biden said, there’s a call for incentives for electric vehicle adoption and for increasing the amount of clean energy the US government buys.
He mentioned the LR Electric and said: “You know, there are more than 600,000 vehicles in the federal fleet….the largest portion of which are at the post office. As we work to electrify them … we’re going to be making a market for (electric) vehicles, supporting both good jobs being created, as well as innovation we need to electrify our transportation sector and clean up our environment.”
The Buy America Act specifies that in replacing government vehicles, the vehicle purchased must be “substantially all” made in America. Today, he said, that means a mere 55%.
He said he’s directing officials to rewrite the rules – to stipulate that replacement government vehicles must have a higher US-made content – 75%: “Substantially all” is going to mean substantially all.”
And he’s going to ensure that contractors must disclose the total domestic content of their products. At the moment, he said, no-one is checking: But, he added, “they got a new sheriff in town. We’re going to be checking.”
Biden also pledged action on the shortage
of computer chips and semiconductors and other critical parts and components needed to build vehicles – pointing out that the shortages impact “more than just vehicles – they enable so much of our modern life. Our smartphones, our televisions, our medical equipment. That’s why we will be investing $50billion to have the best chip manufacturing in the world come and build factories in the United States of America.”
That will ensure, he said, that Americans aren’t “held hostage” by shortages of critical parts and components.
T&D