The U.S. Senate on June 18, 2015, approved an amendment from Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., that would require the Pentagon to report to Congress every year on its requests for waivers from the Buy American Act.
What the amendment does
The amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) covers waiver requests that would let the Defense Department buy goods worth more than $5 million from overseas. It passed by unanimous consent as part of a package of amendments. The Senate passed the full defense bill later that day, 71-25.
The Buy American Act requires federal agencies to prefer USA-made goods. Unless an agency gets a waiver, it may not buy products with less than 50% USA-origin components.
“By passing my amendment, the Senate has taken the common-sense stand that American taxpayer dollars should be spent on American-made goods when possible,” Murphy said.
Murphy’s waiver report
That week, Murphy released a report saying the Pentagon had been granted 307,123 waivers and exceptions to the Buy American Act over the previous eight years and had spent $176.8 billion on goods made by foreign companies. The report said waivers for shipbuilding and aerospace products, two key Connecticut industries, had held steady at $5.4 billion even as overall waiver use declined.
The House version of the defense bill did not include the amendment. A Murphy aide told The Connecticut Mirror the senator was confident it would be added in the final House-Senate bill. Murphy later introduced a broader Buy American bill aimed at the Pentagon’s overseas exemption (our coverage).
Source & credit
Source: The Connecticut Mirror: “Murphy has win in ‘Buy America’ campaign”, by Ana Radelat, June 18, 2015.