Rep. Dan Lipinski introduces bill to spur further growth of advanced manufacturing.
As the Coronavirus public health crisis continues to disrupt supply chains — impacting some of our nation’s most essential goods — efforts are redoubling to establish a more secure and robust domestic manufacturing industry. And legislators are hard at work to offer support.
Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) on Wednesday introduced a new bill, the MADE HERE (Manufacturing American Dynamism in Entrepreneurship and Harnessing Education to Retool Employees) Act. The legislation is designed to foment the development of new advanced manufacturing techniques and a skilled workforce — both critical components to a competitive manufacturing base in America.
“For American manufacturing to remain competitive and continue to create good, high-paying jobs, it is essential that we bring together the relevant groups to learn from and collaborate with one another,” said Lipinski. “Manufacturing in the 21st century requires new technologies and wider skills sets than the manufacturing jobs of the past. We need a workforce that is well-equipped to handle emerging technologies and craft innovations that will help the United States remain an international leader in advanced manufacturing.”
Under the legislation, the National Institutes of Science and Technology, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense would implement a competitive process that would award up to $3 million over three years to regional manufacturing clusters, comprised of “educational institutions, private companies, nonprofits, labor groups, and government-funded resources.” The clusters would implement activities to address an emerging technical area of need in the manufacturing industry.
After this initial funding, three of the clusters would receive up to $10 million over five years to continue their programs.
Lipinski’s current manufacturing initiative is part of a sustained endeavor to support America’s manufacturers and workers. In 2014, he authored the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act, which mandated the publication of America’s first manufacturing strategy since the early days of our nation’s history.
“I am proud to have been able to pass the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act in 2014, which required publication of the first American manufacturing strategy since the days of Alexander Hamilton,” Lipinski said. “It is now time to put those recommendations into practice. MADE HERE is the first step towards implementing the recommendations in this report to grow our manufacturing sector and create better jobs for the years to come.”