Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Madam Chair, just to quickly point out that is a pretty bread-and-butter, vanilla restriction on funding, as I understand one of the objections is that this would change the duties of contracting officers who now don't apply the Buy America law. In fact, normal course of training requirements for contracting specialists already educate those specialists in how to apply the Buy America law whether or not they currently do it today.

I do believe for that reason that the amendment is germane.

The Acting CHAIR. Does any other Member wish to speak on the point of order? If not, the Chair is prepared to rule.

The gentleman from Florida makes a point of order that the amendment offered by the gentleman from Connecticut proposes to change existing law, in violation of clause 2(c) of rule XXI.

As recorded in Deschler's Precedents, volume 8, chapter 26, section 52, even though a limitation or exception therefrom might refrain from explicitly assigning new duties to officers of the government, if it implicitly requires them to make investigations, compile evidence, or make judgments and determinations not otherwise required of them by law, then it assumes the character of legislation and is subject to a point of order under clause 2(c) of rule XXI.

The proponent of a limitation assumes the burden of establishing that any duties imposed by the provision either are merely ministerial or are already required by law.

The Chair finds that limitation proposed in the amendment offered by the gentleman from Connecticut does not simply impose a negative restriction on the funds in the bill. Instead, it requires the officials concerned to make a determination regarding whether a certain item to be acquired for use outside the United States is substantially manufactured in the United States, a matter with which they are not charged under existing law.

On these premises, the Chair concludes that the amendment offered by the gentleman from Connecticut proposes to change existing law.

Accordingly, the point of order is sustained.

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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Since 2003, the Defense Department reports that it has spent approximately $1.3 billion to buy non-combat vehicles from foreign vehicle manufacturers.

Now you may ask, why is that? We have a law on the books that's called the Buy American Act, and it generally requires that when we are buying items for use by the U.S. military and they are available here in the United States that they should be bought from U.S. companies. It makes a lot of sense. If we're going to be spending billions of dollars in taxpayer money, we should make sure that it goes to fund U.S. manufacturers and U.S. jobs.

But here's the problem. There are a number of loopholes, a growing number of exceptions to the Buy America law. The biggest is this one. One of the exceptions says that if you are buying a particular good for use outside of the United States, you don't have to comply with the Buy America clause at all. Well, that becomes a pretty enormous, truck-sized loophole when we are fighting two wars abroad, because much of what we are purchasing goes immediately to foreign companies.

So you have a situation where non-combat vehicles, light trucks, ambulances, buses, motorcycles, vehicles that are made by a multitude of American manufacturers, are now being bought overseas and our taxpayer dollars are going to foreign European and Asian vehicle manufacturers and into the pockets of foreign workers.

This is a much bigger problem than just this one category of spending. In fact, the DOD has spent about $36 billion in purchases from foreign companies for use outside of the United States. In fact, just this last year, there were about 38,000 waivers to the Buy America Act for a variety of exceptions, and over the last 4 years about 161,000 waivers to the Buy America Act. This is a very large problem, as we see growing numbers of exceptions to the act. This one, though, is the biggest.

And while I think we've got to pass comprehensive legislation to try to take on these growing waivers from the Buy America Act, this amendment, which I offer with my good friend Representative Peters of Michigan, will simply restrict the purchase of these everyday non-combat vehicles to vehicles that are made by American workers. People in my State of Connecticut and around the country are out of work, and a $1.3 billion infusion, money that we're going to spend anyway, will help create jobs.

To be successful in the 21st century we can't continue to cede our manufacturing capacity to overseas workers. The Department of Defense is the world's largest purchaser of many types of products and we must do all that we can to make sure that we're putting this money, our taxpayers' money to work here at home while not doing any damage to the mission abroad. These non-combat vehicles could easily be manufactured by American plants, and it's high time that we put people back to work here in this country. I urge adoption of this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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