Legislation To Call For Products Developed By Federal Research Dollars Be Made in US

A House Democrat intends to introduce legislation next week to ensure products developed with federal research funds are manufactured in the United States.

Rep. Chaka Fattah of Pennsylvania says his forthcoming American Discoveries - American Jobs Commission Act of 2011 when Congress would seeks to establish a commission to study and recommend improvements to the existing system of federally funded research.

The commission would examine the possibilities for collecting government royalties from research which leads to the commercialization of profitable products in order to further invest in new discoveries. The commission would be further directed to ensure products developed with federal research are manufactured in the United States, guaranteeing broader benefits from initial investments, according to a statement from Fattah's office.

The federal government spends approximately $130 billion annually on research and development. Over the years, this research has led to new products and processes such as antibiotics, plastics, airplanes, computers, microwaves, and bioengineered drugs.

These types of innovations are responsible for up to one-half the growth of the U.S. economy and are the principal driving force in the nations' long-term economic prosperity.

Fattah previewed his proposed legislation this week to attendees of a manufacturing conference.

"The federal government should be able to claim royalties from its own investment in early research then reinvest those royalties in science, technology, engineering and math education and future federal research," Fattah says. "If new or improved products are on the commercial market because of federal research dollars then they should be stamped 'Made in America.'"

The "Made in America" concept has been a growing theme for Democrats.

House Democrats say they have an entire package of legislation designed to revitalize the U.S. manufacturing base.

Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the left-leaning Vermont independent, secured a commitment earlier this year from the the Smithsonian Institution in Washington to sell only made-in-America products at a gift shop in the National Museum of American History.

Sanders in January first questioned why a history museum gift shop stocked bronze-colored busts of U.S. presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama that are “crafted in China.”

“Given the state of the American economy, I would urge the National Museum of American History to do its very best to find American companies to manufacture the products that it sells,” Sanders wrote in a letter to Brent Glass, the history museum director. Sanders asked why a museum owned by the people of the United States, celebrating the history of the United States, cannot find companies in this country employing American workers that are able to manufacture statues of our founding fathers.

Some 50,000 manufacturing plants in the U.S. were closed over the past decade, and more than 5.4 million good-paying manufacturing jobs were lost as companies took advantage of cheap labor overseas. “This clearly is one of the factors contributing to the substantial shrinking of the middle class that we have been seeing in the last several decades," Sanders says.

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