House committee adopts amendment that strips damaging language governing water projects.
On Tuesday, the House Appropriations Committee marked up a bill to fund the Interior Department for the new year, and committee members considered an amendment:
Should the government, when purchasing steel under existing Buy America rules, be allowed to skirt rules that make sure that steel for certain infrastructure projects is really made in America?
The domestic steel industry weighed in with a big ol' nope:
In a letter to the House Appropriations Committee on Monday, several organizations urged the panel to adopt an amendment to strip language in the underlying measure that allows steel that is melted and poured abroad to be used in domestic water infrastructure projects.
A ton of concerned citizens weighed in, too, with hundreds of emails and phone calls to their representatives on the committee. They wanted language removed from a bill that would weaken the rules governing how federal dollars – your dollars — are spent on infrastructrure projects: Should they go to iron and steel made in America by American workers? Or should they be allowed to chase deals on government-subsidized steel from Russia and China?
As of this writing, the House Appropriations Committee is still working through a number of amendments. But we have an update on the fate of the amendment that aimed to strip that damaging language out of the legislation:
It passed, by voice vote, big time.
Looks like the committee heard all of those concerned citizens who called or wrote in, in support of American manufacturing. Well done, America!
And a special shoutout to Reps. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) and Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.), the bipartisan tag team that sponsored the amendment.