Nolan Urges President-Elect Trump to Join Him in Effort to Rebuild America’s Infrastructure with American-Made Products & Steel

[WASHINGTON D.C.] U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan today urged President-Elect Donald Trump to join him in his unequivocal support of the use of exclusively American-made products in all U.S. infrastructure projects.

“In my District, nearly 1,000 Iron Range miners are out of work, along with thousands more steelworkers across the Nation because China and other countries are allowed to illegally dump millions of tons of low grade, cheap foreign government-subsidized steel into our marketplace,” Nolan said in his letter to the President-Elect. “There is no better way to protect American jobs and boost our Nation’s economy than to expand investment in our infrastructure, impose high tariffs and countervailing duties on cheater nations, and fortify ‘Buy America’ requirements.”

Nolan has been successful in persuading the Obama Administration to impose cripplingly high tariffs on foreign steel, effectively curtailing the flood of low grade, cheap foreign government-subsidized steel into the United States. He also introduced the American Pipeline Jobs and Safety Act, which requires that all energy pipelines built and federally permitted in the United States contain 100 percent American steel – and iron ore that is mined, processed or reprocessed in America. He plans to reintroduce this legislation in the 115th Congress.

The full text of the letter is below:

December 6, 2016

President Elect Donald J. Trump
Trump Tower
725 5th Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Dear Mr. President-Elect Trump,

As a member of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee and a vocal advocate of rebuilding and investing in our Nation’s infrastructure, I look forward to working with you to find a bipartisan, sensible way to fix our infrastructure crisis and create American jobs with living wages. As you know, our Nation’s roads are crumbling, our bridges are collapsing, trains are running off the tracks and our pipelines are cracking, causing them to spill tons of hazardous materials into our water supply. Additionally, our water infrastructure is corroding, causing toxins in our drinking water to harm children’s developing young brains. Unfortunately, we have become a Nation of reaction and rely on public disasters – such as the Flint, Michigan incident, or the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Amtrak derailment – to address areas where our country is in dire need. It is time we become a proactive Nation and finally put this era of neglect to an end.

According to the Nation’s civil engineers as well as the Alliance for American Manufacturing, the United States Chamber of Commerce, and our Nation’s major unions, we must invest $1 trillion in our infrastructure. These investments will modernize our economy and create 13 million good paying jobs in the process. Additionally, a serious investment plan will  reinvigorate our Nation’s transportation and manufacturing sectors, both of which have a history of spurring significant economic and job growth.

During your Presidential Campaign, you promised the American public you will ensure America’s businesses and jobs will stay in the United States and not be sent overseas. I commend you for making that commitment and encourage you to live up to that promise during your presidency.

One way to boost American industry is to strengthen and aggressively enforce our Nation’s “Buy America” laws by ensuring that transportation infrastructure projects are built with American-made products. I am a firm believer that if we are utilizing American taxpayer money to perform such improvement projects, we ought to buy American-made goods and services to implement them. There are far too many projects and initiatives across the country that are being completed with overreliance on foreign-made supplies, a trend that harms our economy and kills jobs.

For example, in my District, nearly 1,000 Iron Range miners are out of work, along with thousands more steelworkers across the Nation because China and other countries are allowed to illegally dump millions of tons of low grade, cheap foreign government-subsidized steel into our marketplace. While we have been successful in curtailing this flow with high tariffs and countervailing duties, there is additional work to be done. To assist in these efforts, I introduced the American Pipeline Jobs and Safety Act, which requires that all energy pipelines built and federally permitted in the United States contain 100 percent American steel – and iron ore that is mined, processed or reprocessed in America. I plan to reintroduce this legislation in the 115th Congress.

There is no better way to protect American jobs and boost our Nation’s economy than to expand investment in our infrastructure, impose high tariffs and countervailing duties on cheater nations, and fortify “Buy America” requirements. I look forward to working with you to achieve these commonsense objectives for the good of the American people and our nation.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Richard M. Nolan

Member of Congress