“Buy America” sounds like an easy campaign promise to get behind, but there is more to it than a promise to make America great again by protecting American jobs. West Coast steel manufacturer, California Steel Industries (CSI), has been in the national news recently, advocating for the steel they produce to be part of this promise.
CSI has worked for several years to adjust the “Buy America” interpretation, originally set in the early 1980s and used in transportation and water projects that receive federal funding. Under the current rule, the steel used in these projects must be “melted” in the United States, meaning that our imported slabs and the steel we roll from them do not qualify for these projects. Instead, CSI believes that the “Buy American” standard of “substantial transformation” should apply, protecting the original intent to preserve American jobs.
Under Buy American, it doesn’t matter where the melting occurred. So long as the final product (such as a guard rail) is manufactured in the U.S., then it could be used in federally assisted projects even if the slab was imported. President Trump’s recent memorandums have called for the all processes from melting to coatings, including raw material sourcing, to have originated in the US. CSI wants to change this to ensure that their products are eligible for use in new projects.
Recently, CSI President and CEO Marcelo Botelho and CSI Executive Vice President of Finance and Administration Brett Guge visited with seven U. S. Representatives and Senator Diane Feinstein’s Chief of Staff to explain the issue to these lawmakers.
“We believe that those that we met with were receptive to our concerns and ideas for fixing this issue,” said Botelho. “Of course, there are many Representatives from the Midwest and East Coast representing steel mills that have other thoughts, and this will continue to be an uphill battle,” he noted.
As CSI’s concerns have been shared with lawmakers, the national press has noticed that the Buy America issue is not as simple as many at first believed. Recently President Trump issued a memorandum that gave the Department of Commerce six months to finalize a plan mandating the use of American-melted steel in domestic pipeline projects. As a follow-up, National Public Radio (NPR) interviewed Guge to tell how this could actually hurt manufacturers such as CSI.
The interview addressed the use of a worldwide market economy to provide many of the materials that are utilized in the construction of a pipeline such as Keystone XL and the Dakota Access. The entire interview can be accessed at http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2017/01/31/american-made-steel-pipeline.
The Wall Street Journal also published a story showing the impact of “Buy America” on the cost of infrastructure projects and on jobs held by American workers. Of more concern was that the “Buy America” standard would be extended to privately-funded projects, such as pipelines.
“We appreciate the direction the President wants to go in terms of jobs in America. We just don’t want to be left out, which appears to be a problem for us if it stands as currently written,” said Botelho.
NaturallyNat 