"Buy American" - Confusion and Delay

by Brad Peck

Congress, this is stupid stuff: you normally spend our money fast enough; but your stimulus rules didn't make much sense and now we suffer consequence. From Bloomberg:

President Barack Obama's stimulus spending has run into a problem: A shortage of General Electric Co. water filters. GE makes them in Canada. Under the program's ‘Buy American' rules, that means the filters can't be used for work paid for by the $787 billion fund.

Contractors are searching the U.S. in vain for filters as well as bolts and manhole covers needed to build wastewater plants, sewers and water pipes financed by the economic stimulus. As officials wait for federal waivers to buy those goods outside the U.S., water projects from Maine to Kansas have been delayed.

"It's added a whole new level of difficulty," said Kathy Emery, a senior engineer for the West Virginia Department of Environment. "We're continually having changes and further guidance" from federal rule-makers, she said...

"Buy American has stopped U.S. wastewater work this year," he said. "I'm surviving by selling to Canada." Even that market won't be safe if Buy American sparks a "Buy Canada" retaliatory initiative, he said...While they waited for weeks for a waiver to buy more covers for a new sewer project, Norm Lamie ordered steel plates placed over the exposed holes...In Overland Park, Kansas, a $16 million project for a sludge plant hit delays once officials accepted federal stimulus funds, said Mike Welch, president of Topeka-based BRB Contractors Inc. Construction stalled because U.S. authorities had to authorize the use of Austrian-made equipment unavailable anywhere else, Welch said.

"I would think that with the economy the way it is, someone would make some exceptions and get things done," Welch said in an interview.

Comments

[Rick Wilson]

How is NAFTA, CAFTA and other trade de-regulation working out for us now? Remember when the Chamber told us how the $800M trade SURPLUS with Mexico would balloon to over $5B once NAFTA was passed? Well, in case you haven't noticed, NAFTA was passed and we now have a trade defecit with Mexico. All we did was ship away 100's of thousands of jobs.
http://www.manufacturing.net/article.aspx?id=213382
Nice work Chamber of Commerce. Free trade; there is no such thing, especially when our manufacturing enterprises are so heavily regulated. I hope you feel really good about the things that you have promoted.

[Dan Siemens]

Buy American is not good thing. Canada should have been included in this as they have made efforts to not exclude American companies in its competitions. Buy American is Bad for Business.

Buy American should have included Canada and Mexico as part of NAFTA.

[Jeff]

If we can ship manufacturing out....we can ship it back in. Our economy didn't collapse overnight. It was 15 (or so) years of ideodic neo-liberal, deregulated free trade, free market and privatization policy. It will take time to fix the U.S. economy and bring its manufacturing base back.

Buying foreign goods and materials stimulates their economies and puts their people to work, not ours. We also can't put Americans back to work if we keep hiring foreigners (legal or illegal)