U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (MI-08) commended the Biden Administration for signing an executive order that marks a first step in securing our country's supply chains, and in a House Homeland Security Committee hearing, reaffirmed her commitment to moving to contact on incentivizing American manufacturing and ensuring supply chain resilience.
Michigan has seen firsthand the consequences of supply chain vulnerabilities. During the height of the COVID-19 crisis last spring, Slotkin found herself negotiating with foreign suppliers to fight to get masks and other protective equipment to Michigan's healthcare workers, as Michigan received old or expired supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile. Recently, there has been a global shortage in semiconductors, posing challenges for Michigan's auto manufacturers.
"It's time to move beyond talking about bipartisan concerns about the failures in our supply chain during COVID, and start taking action to actually incentivize domestic production and Buy American requirements," Slotkin said. "I'm glad to see President Biden begin to move to contact on this, and order a soup-to-nuts review of our supply chains and their vulnerabilities, so that we're not caught flat-footed in a crisis again."
"This kind of review is something I fought to include in the NDAA last Congress, so that the Pentagon could go through the same exercise –– and making sure our defense supply chains are strong and resilient is going to continue to be a focus of mine in the coming months," Slotkin continued.
"In a hearing with the Homeland Security Committee today, that's exactly what I asked about: how we at the federal level can bring our supply chain back to the U.S. and reduce our dependence on foreign manufacturers."
|
The executive order President Biden announced today will order the review of some of our country's most critical supply chains, and kicks off a 100-day review of the supply chains for critical goods such as semiconductors, high-capacity batteries, including those for electric vehicles, pharmaceuticals, and strategic minerals.
Slotkin, who has been leading efforts in the House throughout the COVID-19 crisis to secure our supply chains and make more critical supplies in the U.S., has pushed to toughen up "Buy American" requirements for the federal government since the first week of the Biden Administration. In a letter to the administration, Slotkin urged them to close loopholes that allow federal government agencies to skirt "Buy American" requirements through a waiver, and make those waiver requests transparent and available online.
Slotkin's bipartisan Strengthening America's Strategic National Stockpile Act, a package to reduce dependence on foreign manufacturers as a matter of national security, passed the House with unanimous, bipartisan support in the last Congress.
Original source can be found here.
