A petition has been sent to the White House from four industry groups asking for a clarification of the Biden Administration’s “made in America” construction products and materials requirements.
Those requirements as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act were originally designed to make the U.S. less reliant on materials manufactured in other countries. By so doing, said Biden, the requirements would spur domestic manufacturing resulting in “tens of thousands of good-paying jobs and clean energy manufacturing jobs.”
Employment, Biden continued, would be spurred in solar factories in the Midwest and South, wind farms in the West, and clean hydrogen projects everywhere else, “all across America, every part of America.”
While the aim of the Biden requirement is laudable, say the industry groups, the Office of Management and Budget’s focus on managing every aspect of the initiative “is not practical and causes confusion and delay with the federal agencies that fund construction projects.”
The letter, which was jointly sent by the American Public Transportation Association, the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, the Associated General Contractors of America, and the National Association of Home Builders, was particularly critical of what it calls “continued uncertainty surrounding the waiver process.”
Although the Office of Management and Budget has a 15-day target for waiver reviews, “the process often proves to be lengthy and unpredictable,” leading to “bureaucratic inertia.”
The industry groups are asking for swifter waivers in a time of “record number of projects utilizing federal funding, short-term deficiencies in domestic manufacturing capabilities, increased materials costs and unpredictable lead times for key components.”
The Office of Management and Budget has not yet responded to the groups’ petition.
By Garry Boulard
