Source: United States Senator for California – Dianne Feinstein
Washington—Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today joined Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) and a group of their colleagues in introducing a bill to identify supply chain bottlenecks and provide financing to expand domestic production of critical products.
This bill is particularly important for the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where as many as 100,000 containers are currently in port and dozens of ships await to offload more containers. Approximately 40 percent of all U.S. container traffic entering the United States enters through L.A.-Long Beach.
The pandemic led to many supply chain problems that are becoming more severe. The situation is compounded by additional challenges such as insufficient warehouse space, a supply-demand imbalance and a shortage of infrastructure workers.
“This bill would improve the federal government’s knowledge of supply chain vulnerabilities, particularly important given recent problems at California ports,” Senator Feinstein said. “It would also provide financing to expand the U.S. manufacturing base. I’m pleased to join Senator Baldwin on this bill in an effort to begin to lessen the supply chain bottleneck that may cause worsening shortages of products as the holidays approach.”
What the bill would do:
- Create a new Office of Supply Chain Resiliency at the Commerce Department to monitor U.S. supply chains and identify vulnerabilities in supply chains for critical products and services.
- Authorize $5 billion per year to provide grants, loans and loan guarantees to American manufacturers to expand their production of critical products and services.
- Require recipients of such financing to agree to labor protections such as recognizing and working with collective bargaining efforts, and to maintain production in the United States.
###