U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin Leads Letter to President Trump: Any Infrastructure Plan Must Include Strong Buy American, Hire American Standards

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin led nine of her colleagues in sending a letter to President Trump urging him to put his words into action on rebuilding America’s infrastructure with a plan that has strong buy American, hire American standards.

“As you draft your infrastructure proposal, we encourage you to not only protect existing ‘Buy America’ laws, but to work with Congress to expand these protections and address coverage gaps,” wrote the Senators in the letter. “In addition, no infrastructure proposal should allow circumvention of current requirements in federal law that ensure our public infrastructure is built with American-made iron, steel, and manufactured materials by workers who are paid a fair wage.”

The Senators continued, “Like you, we believe that maximizing the use of American-made goods will ‘promote economic and national security and to help stimulate economic growth, create good jobs at decent wages, strengthen our middle class, and support the American manufacturing and defense industrial bases.’ That’s why we called for strong ‘Buy America’ provisions in the Senate Democrats’ Blueprint to Rebuild America’s Infrastructure, which, in addition to ‘Buy America’ requirements, includes a number of our other important infrastructure priorities.”

Led by Senator Baldwin, the letter was also signed by Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Bob Casey (D-PA), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

The full letter is available here.