On
The Issues: Fact Sheet On the Buy American Improvement
Act
February 14, 2007
Under current law, the federal government
is supposed to support American manufacturers and American
workers by buying goods made in the U.S., but the law contains
loopholes that allow agencies to buy foreign goods in some
circumstances. The Buy American Improvement would strengthen
American manufacturing by making it harder to waive the Buy
American requirement.
Feingold’s Buy American Improvement
Act would:
- Prohibit agencies from invoking a waiver in the “public
interest” after a request for bids has been published
in the Federal Register.
- Amend the “unreasonable cost” waiver to give
domestic bidders, or sole domestic source bidders, preference
when their bids are substantially the same as their foreign
competitors.
- Require federal agencies to conduct an analysis of the
difference in cost for obtaining certain goods outside the
U.S. versus from a domestic source, including shipping costs,
prior to invoking this waiver.
- Require federal agencies to conduct a study to determine
whether domestic production can be initiated to meet procurement
needs and whether there is a comparable item available from
a domestic source before invoking this waiver.
- Require that products be at least 75 percent American-made
in order to qualify under the Buy American Act (current
law sets the qualifying content standard at 50 percent).
- Require submission of annual reports on items purchased
from foreign sources, including an itemized list of all
waivers under the Act applicable to all federal agencies
for five years. Previously, only the Department of Defense
was required to submit such a report.
- Require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to
report to Congress with recommendations for defining the
terms “inconsistent with the public interest”
and “unreasonable cost” for purposes of invoking
the corresponding waivers in the Act. These broad terms,
which grant wide latitude to agency heads, are not defined
in federal law.
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