House advances legislation to ramp up 'Buy American' requirements on DOD

摘要

The House is poised to pass legislation that gradually ramps up "Buy American" requirements on the Defense Department's largest programs of record, but industry representatives and analysts say the "arbitrary" rules could trip up important weapons developments and hurt international cooperation on defense programs. At the heart of the debate is lawmakers' desire to create American manufacturing jobs and reduce U.S. reliance on foreign sources. The language, inserted via amendment into the House Armed Services Committee's fiscal year 2021 defense authorization bill, directs that all major defense acquisition programs "shall be deemed to be manufactured substantially all from [materials and components] produced, or manufactured in the United States," according to the bill text. The current statutes describe "substantially all" as 50%, but the new provision would increase that to 75% starting in October 2021 and ramp up the requirements annually to 100% by 2026.