DeFazio To Federal Transit Administration: Aggressively Enforce ‘Buy America’ Provisions
Washington, D.C. – Chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Peter DeFazio (D-OR) today wrote the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) regarding the enforcement of “Buy America” provisions within their jurisdiction.
“One of the greatest threats to a strong U.S. transportation manufacturing sector is the rise of predatory Chinese state-owned and -supported enterprises, which rely on government-subsidized, below-market pricing to drive legitimate competitors out of business,” Chair DeFazio wrote. “Congress sought to address this concern by prohibiting the use of federal transit funds to purchase rolling stock from State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in most cases. Unfortunately, the law also provides four transit agencies with a permanent exemption to those protections.”
Specifically, Chair DeFazio is asking FTA to:
- Ensure that when transit agencies procure SOE-built rolling stock, the manufacturer and the transit agency comply with all aspects of transit Buy America requirements, to which they are still subject.
- Undertake enhanced Buy America compliance reviews for procurements from SOEs.
- Identify Buy America oversight standards and reporting requirements to improve transit agencies’ oversight when procuring rolling stock from SOEs.
- Require robust and publicly-available reporting by exempt transit agencies of all mandatory and voluntary oversight steps they take when procuring rolling stock from SOEs.
The full letter can be found here.
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