Made-in-America Initiative: How We Can Make Buying American Products a Priority

AUSTIN, Texas - Feb. 15, 2021 - PRLog -- On January 25, President Biden issued "The Executive Order on Ensuring the Future Is Made in All of America by All of America's Workers."

The basic premise of the executive order is that Federal and Federally-funded contracts should purchase American-made products.

Isn't this already the law?

The answer is a qualified yes, as there are already three laws on the books that mandate federal procurement agents purchase American-made products:

• The first is the Buy American Act of 1933, which was signed by President Hoover on his last day in office.
• The second is the 1982 Buy America Act (a provision of the larger Surface Transportation Assistance Act), which stipulates that purchases for road, rail, or rapid transit projects valued over US$100,000 are American-bought.
• The third is the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, aka "the stimulus package" created in response to the Great Recession, whose funding stipulates all iron, steel, and other manufactured goods purchased must be produced in the United States. (This was later amended to allow Canadian goods, after a row with the Canadian government over NAFTA rules.)

The Devil Is In The Details: Interpreting Federal Procurement Regulations

So what difference will the new executive order make?

The answer turns on the ability of the executive branch to interpret the existing laws.

To this end, Biden is establishing a new Made in America office within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which in turn, will liaise with leaders in each of the Federal departments.

Collectively, they will be tasked with coming up with ways to strengthen the provisions of the Buy American Act of 1933, the 1982 Buy America Act, etc., and issue bi-annual recommendations.

For example, the Buy American Act of 1933 allows for procurement officers to apply for waivers that allow them to bypass the requirement to buy American-made products if, for example, the product is not available domestically, or if it's 25% more expensive or, rather vaguely, if "doing so is in the public's interest."

In announcing his executive order, President Biden said he wants to tighten the waiver process to make it harder for federal agencies to buy foreign goods.

In this order, he is also mandating greater transparency in the procurement process, and specifically, requiring that any waivers, when issued, be published on a publicly accessible website so that American businesses (and citizens) can see where the Federal government is spending money on foreign products.

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