Senator Baldwin’s Build America, Buy America Standards Announced

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the White House released final guidance to boost the use of American-made goods in infrastructure projects — standards that Senator Tammy Baldwin successfully fought to include in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to ensure taxpayer dollars are supporting American businesses, workers, and economic growth. Senator Baldwin has long fought for strong Buy America measures in federal legislation, successfully including key provisions of her Made in America Act in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

The final guidance will support the implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s statutory requirements that iron and steel, manufactured products, and construction materials like fiber optic cable used in federally funded infrastructure projects are Made in America.

“To me, it’s always been simple: when we spend taxpayer dollars, we should be investing those dollars in American businesses, American jobs and American workers whenever possible,” said Senator Baldwin. “The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is repairing our roads and bridges, delivering clean water to Wisconsin families, and connecting households and businesses with high-speed internet, and the Buy America provisions I fought to include mean those investments are also supporting our Made in America manufacturing economy and creating more family-supporting jobs. I look forward to continuing to work with the Biden Administration to make sure we get the implementation of my Build America, Buy America provisions in this law right.”

The Build America, Buy America Act that Senator Baldwin worked to include in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law significantly expanded requirements that federally funded infrastructure projects use American-made iron, steel, construction materials, and manufactured products. That means taxpayer dollars funding our country’s infrastructure projects are invested back in American jobs and manufacturing. The key provisions of the Build America, Buy America Act included in the infrastructure legislation are:

• Expanding Buy America to many common construction materials beyond just iron, steel, and manufactured products. New materials could include: non-ferrous metals (like copper), plastic, concrete, glass (including optical glass in broadband), lumber, and drywall.
• Requiring that all of the manufacturing processes used in making the material be completed in the United States in order to qualify as “American made.”

As a result of these provisions, Senator Baldwin recently helped announce that Nokia is bringing up to 200 manufacturing jobs to Wisconsin to produce key components for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, a $42.45 billion grant program created through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to expand high-speed internet to every American.

For additional information on this final guidance, click here. Final Guidance text available here.

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