The White House has released a fact sheet highlighting the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to boost American manufacturing and create jobs through initiatives like the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. The administration claims these policies have led to significant private sector investments in manufacturing across various industries, including semiconductors, electric vehicles, and clean energy technologies.
Since day one, President Biden and Vice President Harris have worked to make “Made in America” a reality. In his first week in office, President Biden signed his Executive Order on Ensuring the Future is Made in All of America by All of America’s Workers, which established the first ever Made in America Office at the White House Office of Management and Budget, and launched a whole-of-government initiative to support American manufacturing. The President and Vice President secured historic legislation to make “Made in America” a reality — including enacting legislation the last administration failed to pass — and implemented the most robust change to the Buy American Act in almost 70 years to ensure that taxpayer money is supporting workers and manufacturing across America.
The Biden-Harris Investing in America agenda is a Made in America agenda. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law put Americans to work rebuilding our nation with American-made materials, and included the Build America, Buy America Act to require that all iron, steel, manufactured products, and construction materials used in Federally funded infrastructure projects are produced in the America. The CHIPS and Science Act is making the United States once again a world leader in manufacturing semiconductors that power our lives. And the Inflation Reduction Act is powering a manufacturing revolution in clean energy industries of the future.
Under President Biden and Vice President Harris, businesses are building factories that will power our economy for years to come. The private sector has committed nearly $900 billion in investments in American manufacturing and our power sector, including sectors central to our industrial strength. Construction of factories has doubled — to a record high — after falling under the previous administration. And the United States has created nearly 800,000 manufacturing jobs, after the last administration lost manufacturing jobs.
These are the largest investments in American manufacturing in generations, and they build on historic actions by the Biden-Harris Administration that are making “Made in America” a reality.
The Biden-Harris Made in America Agenda
- Closing Loopholes: In his 2024 State of the Union address, the President announced that the Biden-Harris Administration is taking a historic step to boost domestic manufacturing in transportation. The Department of Transportation published a proposal to discontinue a sweeping Reagan-era Buy America waiver for manufactured products in federal-aid highway projects. This proposal would close a giant loophole and further advance the President and Vice President’s commitment to support American manufacturers and good-paying jobs across the United States. This proposal will bolster our nation’s manufacturing and help create good-paying, American jobs that support the growth of domestic manufacturing.
- CHIPS: The CHIPS and Science Act has spurred a reshoring of high-tech semiconductor manufacturing capacity back to the United States. Semiconductors are the lifeblood of the future economy and are vital to our economic and national security. Since the President and Vice President took office, dozens of companies have committed to invest nearly $400 billion in total semiconductor investments across this country. These investments have been enabled by the Department of Commerce CHIPS incentive program, which has reached preliminary terms with 13 semiconductor manufacturers across the supply chain to provide nearly $30 billion in direct funding and $25 billion in loans. The Department of Commerce has also launched the National Semiconductor Technology Center and announced billions in research and development funding opportunities; the National Science Foundation has catalyzed hundreds of millions in funding for workforce initiatives; and the Department of Defense has funded research hubs throughout the country to ensure America continues to lead industries of the future. America invented the semiconductor, and once again we are on track to revitalizing our domestic semiconductor industry through over a hundred thousand jobs all across the nation – helping ensure more chips are made in America by American workers.
- Buy American: In 2022, the Biden-Harris Administration announced the most robust updates to the implementation of the Buy American Act in nearly 70 years to ensure taxpayer dollars create good-paying jobs here at home, and strengthen critical supply chains. This rule increased the domestic content requirements for Made in America for federal procurement from 55 percent of the value of their component parts that are manufactured here to a threshold of 60 percent in 2022, 65 percent in 2024, and 75 percent in 2029. This action also closed loopholes in the current regulation while allowing businesses time to onshore manufacturing and adjust their supply chains to increase the use of American-made components.
- Broadband: The Biden-Harris Investing in America agenda includes historic funding for high-speed internet access, spurring hundreds of millions of dollars in investments in broadband manufacturing as numerous companies onshore and expand domestic manufacturing capacity.As a result of these policies, close to 90% of the funding spent on equipment for the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program will be spent on equipment manufactured in the United States. Implementation of the BEAD Program is creating thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs across the country — from Kenosha, Wisconsin to Hickory, North Carolina and Gilbert, Arizona. Workers in these communities are now producing broadband equipment, like fiber optic cable and key electronics, necessary to bring affordable, reliable high-speed internet to everyone in America.
- Port Infrastructure: The Administration continues to deliver for the American people by rebuilding the U.S.’s industrial capacity to produce port cranes with trusted partners. The Administration will invest over $20 billion, including through grants, into U.S. port infrastructure over the next 5 years through the Biden-Harris Investing in America agenda, including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. As a result, PACECO Corp., a U.S.-based subsidiary of Mitsui E&S Co., Ltd (Japan), is planning to onshore U.S. manufacturing capacity for its crane production. Leveraging over $20 billion in funding for America’s ports infrastructure over the next 5 years, alongside the recent Executive Order on Amending Regulations Relating to the Safeguarding of Vessels, Harbors, Ports, and Waterfront Facilities of the United States to bolster the security of the nation’s ports, and tariffs to protect American workers and businesses from China’s unfair trade practices, these investments will support and better secure America’s critical infrastructure.
- High Speed Rail: The Brightline West High Speed Rail project is made possible by the Biden-Harris Administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The Department of Transportation plans to provide $3 billion in federal funding to Brightline West for the rail project, which will create 35,000 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent positions when completed in 2028. The railroad is projected to carry 8 million passengers a year between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Because of the work of the Biden-Harris Administration, it is estimated that more than 95 percent of the total direct dollar expenditures for the Project will be spent on domestically sourced products and labor. The project sponsors also established a commitment with several craft rail unions for the use of highly skilled union labor in critical operations and maintenance jobs. The memorandum of understanding with the High-Speed Rail Labor Coalition is comprised of 13 rail unions representing more than 160,000 freight, regional, commuter, and passenger railroad workers in the United States.
- Clean Energy Manufacturing: The Biden-Harris climate and infrastructure laws have spurred a boom in American clean energy manufacturing as factories break ground nationwide to make electric vehicle batteries, solar and wind components, and other nuts and bolts of the growing clean energy economy. Since President Biden and Vice President Harris took office, companies have announced more than $250 billion in investments in American clean energy and electric vehicle manufacturing, creating new U.S. manufacturing jobs and helping communities that have been left behind make a comeback. While federal agencies deploy unprecedented investments to support American manufacturing, the Biden-Harris Administration has also taken bold action to protect America’s growing clean energy manufacturing workforce from unfair trade practices in China by increasing tariffs on imports from China in strategic sectors such as electric vehicles, batteries, critical minerals, solar cells, and steel and aluminum.
- Electric Vehicle Chargers: Under the Biden-Harris Administration, at least 40 Electric Vehicle (EV) charger factories in the United States have been announced or opened, representing at least half a billion dollars of investment in the American EV charging network. These investments are spurred by the successful implementation of the American manufacturing plan for EV chargers. This new policy for EV chargers restored Buy America standards for these products, while also giving time for supply chains to adjust — allowing newly announced manufacturing capacity for EV charger components the necessary time to ramp up production. This increased EV charger manufacturing helps enable the $7.5 billion that is going toward building the nation’s EV charging network.
Publicly available EV charging infrastructure has grown by over 93% since the President and Vice President took office. There are now over 185,000 public EV chargers across the country. The United Steelworkers said the approach to Buy America for EV chargers “creates demand signals for companies to make investments in the United States knowing they will benefit from the Buy America preference.”
- Tech Hubs: The Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration recently awarded $504 million to 12 Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs to accelerate the growth of manufacturing and innovative industries, such as clean energy, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and semiconductors, in communities across the country. These Tech Hubs will ensure that the benefits of innovation and technology development, which for too long have been concentrated in a few coastal cities, reach rural, industrial, and disadvantaged communities, growing regional economies from the bottom-up and the middle-out.
- Industrial Mobilization: The Office of Management and Budget issued guidance to agencies to better leverage federal procurement dollars to strengthen domestic sourcing for critical products and supply chains. This action is in furtherance of the President’s directive to develop enhanced price preferences and better leverage industrial mobilization authority to support American manufacturing. These actions will allow agencies to manage and mitigate supply chain risks as well as take a targeted approach to support competition and combat harm to domestic industries as a result of subsidies from non-market economies.
- Invent it Here Make it Here: The President’s Executive Order on Federal Research and Development in Support of Domestic Manufacturing and United States Jobs furthers America’s policy of “invent it here, make it here”— benefitting American workers, communities, and global supply chain resilience. The EO will boost the incentive to manufacture new inventions in the United States when those inventions are developed using Federal funds and encourages the expansion of domestic production for critical industries. That means as we bring new inventions to market that were developed through taxpayer dollars, we’re prioritizing American workers, manufacturing, and American ingenuity.
- Construction Materials: The President announced in the 2023 State of the Union that the Federal government would take steps to ensure construction materials that are used in projects that it funds, from copper and aluminum to fiber optic cable, lumber, and drywall, are made in America. The Biden-Harris Administration has since delivered on that commitment, and these standards now apply to virtually all infrastructure spending supported by Federal financial assistance. Meanwhile, thanks to the historic investments in the Biden-Harris climate law, the Department of Energy recently announced more than $6 billion in industrial decarbonization grants to deploy game-changing technologies for steel, aluminum, cement, and other foundational materials. The Biden-Harris Administration also launched the Federal Buy Clean Initiative, to leverage the U.S. government’s purchasing power to spur demand for clean construction materials, like concrete, asphalt, steel and glass. Federal agencies are currently deploying more than $4 billion under Buy Clean.
- Personal Protective Equipment: The Make PPE in America Act, which was signed into law as part of Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, requires the Departments of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services and Veterans Affairs, to purchase American-made personal protected equipment (PPE). The COVID-19 pandemic made clear the need to reduce U.S. reliance on essential foreign goods like PPE. To minimize this vulnerability, this law seeks to ensure that PPE will be made here in America, support domestic manufacturing, create good-paying jobs, and build resilient supply chains.
July 24 2024 Washington, DC
Sources: Midtown Tribune news, WH.gov
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