‘Buy America’ in Stimulus (but Good Luck With That)
The “Buy America” clause in the $787 billion stimulus package signed into law on Tuesday has a certain quaintness to it. Far more than in the past, the phrase has come to mean “Buy America — if it is still made here.”
Take the $43 billion earmarked for green technology. Most of the nation’s solar panels and wind turbines are imported, mainly from Europe and Asia, and the new law waves aside Buy America restrictions if “the relevant manufactured goods are not produced in the United States in sufficient and reasonably available quantities.”
The provision will apply mainly to the nearly $150 billion that will be spent on infrastructure projects, including green technology. Supporters of the original measure hoped that all of the “iron, steel and manufactured goods” used in the various projects would be made in the United States. But the legislation signed by President Obama is full of exceptions that quiet even the fiercest critics of that original plan.
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