Dear [Title] [Name]:
Our nation must make significant investments to install, upgrade or replace our drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. As we invest in our nation's water infrastructure, American taxpayers expect, now more than ever, that the iron and steel products incorporated into these taxpayer-financed projects will be manufactured in America by American workers.
The vast majority of Americans support domestic preferences in taxpayer-financed infrastructure spending. They believe that our tax dollars should be reinvested in our taxpayers, thereby preserving and creating jobs in the United States. This overwhelming support is owed to a shared recognition that U.S. taxpayer dollars should not be used to reward those companies that have moved their operations, investment dollars and jobs to foreign countries, foreign mills and foundries that completely disregard environmental, worker and workplace safety regulations.
Our government procurement policies should not be divorced from our regulatory policies. To the contrary, taxpayer-financed federal aid infrastructure programs – particularly those administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, which is charged with protecting the environment – should give a commonsense preference for the products of American companies and workers who continue to manufacture in the United States in accordance with the nation’s stringent regulatory requirements, continue to invest in their U.S. operations, modernizing plants to make them safe and efficient, continue to create and sustain jobs here in the United States. Buy America procurement preference policies ensure that companies and workers that play by the rules can compete in U.S. taxpayer-financed government procurement markets.
I urge your support for the application of Buy American policies to the nation’s taxpayer-financed water infrastructure programs. These smart policies create demand for domestically produced goods and help to sustain and grow domestic manufacturing and the millions of upstream supplier and service provider jobs that it supports. Support Buy American policies for water infrastructure; it is simply the right thing to do.
Thank you
