Continued Buy America Waiver for Manufactured Products is Critical

What happened: ARTBA May 22 urged the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to keep its longstanding policy exempting manufactured products from Buy America requirements. A provision in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) requires periodic agency review and public comment on these types of waivers. FHWA’s options include maintaining the waiver, repealing it completely, or requiring that a certain minimum percentage of a manufactured product’s components be produced in the U.S.

Why it matters: The manufactured products waiver dates to 1978. ARTBA emphasized that the waiver’s original rationale still applies: there would be overwhelming administrative costs required to trace and certify the origin of components that comprise manufactured products. ARTBA listed hundreds of examples of these items incorporated into highway and bridge products, including reflective pavement markings, epoxy bridge overlays, generators, pumps, traffic signal heads and more. Countless manufactured products, or their components, are small, inexpensive ‘commercially-available off-the-shelf’ (COTS) products; it is virtually impossible to determine if they were produced domestically.

What’s next: FHWA will consider the public comments in determining the waiver’s future. It will do so in consultation with the White House Made in America Office (MIAO), which reviews and assesses proposed waivers to domestic preference requirements throughout the federal government. ARTBA continues communicating with federal government officials, state transportation departments, Capitol Hill, allied groups and its members regarding ongoing Buy America implementation challenges. Besides the manufactured products waiver, the association is awaiting developments on MIAO Buy America guidance and a proposed ‘de minimis’ waiver pending since November.