National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Chew on this fact.

In 2007, there were 14,000 waivers granted to the Buy American law by DOD. One year later, in 2008, that number jumped to 65,000. That's a 1-year 450 percent increase in Buy American waivers that likely cost tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of U.S. manufactured jobs.

That's why the amendments being offered in this block by myself, by Representative Edwards, and by Representative Lipinski are so important, because we need to start shining a light on this outrageous flow of U.S. defense jobs overseas.

My amendment would specifically require DOD to explain large increases in waiver approvals from one year to the next, and it would require the DOD to explain if they even looked for American-made products before they granted these waivers. We want to grow American manufacturing. We need to start with the billions and billions of American taxpayer dollars spent at the Department of Defense.

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