Brown touts bill forcing federal agencies to buy American

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) promoted his bill Monday that would require federal agencies to buy textile and clothes made only in the United States.

“We know how to make things in America, and the textile sector employs more than half a million workers in the United States — which is why the federal government should be purchasing, whenever possible, apparel that is domestically produced,” Brown said in a statement Monday. “With our widening trade deficit, we should be doing everything we can to support American manufacturing and job creation.”

Brown’s bill, the Wear American Act, would revise current law requiring that 51 percent of federal agency purchases of textiles and apparel be made on American products, requiring that all textile and apparel articles acquired by federal agencies be manufactured from articles, materials or supplies entirely grown, produced or manufactured in the United States. He said it’s critical to the economic recovery to boost domestic apparel and textile manufacturing.

“Whenever possible, American tax dollars should be used to bolster American manufacturing,” Brown said. “Manufacturing helped make this country great. Good-paying manufacturing jobs have allowed hundreds of thousands of Americans to buy homes, send their children to college and retire with security. But for too long, we've seen American manufacturing jobs — including textile and apparel jobs — shipped overseas due to unfair trade that has stacked the deck against American workers.”

Brown introduced S. 3444 this summer and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I) is the only co-sponsor. The bill also would provide flexibility to federal agencies in the event that such textiles and apparel aren’t produced in the United States.

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