Putnam Pipe Blog

It seems as though municipal officials and construction engineers are all scurrying to get a piece of the government stimulus money, or ARRA-The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  Cities and towns are all trying to improve their infrastructure while the assistance money is available.  The improvements in infrastructure are needed, and the funding available, but the requirements for this work can be constricting.  The ARRA has a “Buy America Clause” with provisions for the material on these projects to be produced in the United States, unless this creates undue hardship on the job, unacceptable delays, or causes the total cost of the job to increase by more than 25%.  What is confusing to me is that the “Buy America” statute does not include Canada or Mexico.  Our industry just went through an immense NAFTA acceptance and we have established vendors both north and south of the border.  A primary goal of NAFTA was to keep the jobs and products produced local to North America, and fight competition from around the world.  Countries that are not in step with our political process, ecological goals, job conditions or employee wages.  This goal is close to being realized as jobs and manufacturing seems to be on the rebound in this country, and jobs staying in North America.  It seems the combination of the quality control, cost of transportation, and language barriers were all too much to overcome with foreign products in our industry.

While I understand the “Buy America” sentiment, please realize the benefits to this country in dealing with our direct geographical neighbors also.  It has been a long time since we had any conflicts with our neighbors, and they are great allies in many ways.

A “North American” specification for your products will ensure the product is produced locally, and promote many of the goals we set out to achieve when manufacturing in this country.