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Merkley-Brown Amendment Creates American Manufacturing Jobs through Buy America Provisions
Contact: Wayne Ranick (412) 562-2444, wranick@usw.org
(Pittsburgh) – The United Steelworkers (USW) lauded today’s overwhelming support in the Senate, by a 60-36 margin, to pass the Merkley-Brown amendment (#866) to the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA). This will ensure that federal taxpayer dollars used to fund water infrastructure projects under WRDA will be spent on goods and materials made here in America by American workers.
This amendment is consistent with previous Buy America provisions that have established the basic principle that when federal taxpayer dollars are spent on public infrastructure projects, Americans get the work.
“The Merkley-Brown amendment will maintain and grow domestic production of manufactured goods,” said USW International President Leo W. Gerard. “Buy America rules, backed by an open, competitive market-driven process, create and expand the U.S. manufacturing supply chain and retain and create jobs in the United States.”
The Water Resources Development Act of 2013 includes a new water infrastructure financing authority called the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA). The Buy America amendment that passed will expand Buy America provisions to WIFIA and is in compliance with our international obligations under the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The USW strongly believes that taxpayers’ dollars should be used to purchase the iron, steel and manufactured goods made in America that are used in these water infrastructure projects and not to purchase foreign products that often are subsidized by foreign countries or made by state-owned enterprises owned by foreign governments, like China.
The USW represents 850,000 workers in North America employed in many industries that include metals, rubber, chemicals, paper, oil refining and the service and public sectors.
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