Last week, I was proud to vote for, and see the House pass, two important bills that will bring jobs back to North Carolina and the U.S. The House passed the Congressional Made in America Promise Act and the Berry Amendment Extension Act to advance domestic manufacturing by obligating Congress and the Department of Homeland Security to buy products that are made in America.
We’ve seen in North Carolina how the textile industry was hammered by unfair trade and a barrage of cheap imports. We currently operate with a $575 billion trade deficit in apparel and textiles. Since December of 2000, we have seen a loss of 587,000 American textile jobs. These bills are an important step in turning that trend around.
I’m a proud member of the House Buy American Caucus, a bipartisan group working to stop the trend of sending American manufacturing jobs overseas and promote American manufacturing. Unfair trade agreements have closed too many American factories and given too many jobs to China and Mexico. We need to incentivize small businesses to grow and expand to offer their products to markets abroad, as well as close tax loopholes that encourage U.S. companies to move aboard or to outsource the jobs we need here.
While we need to bring manufacturing back to America, we also need to focus on how our region’s proven success in science, technology, and green industry can lay a foundation for job growth. Last week, NOAA announced that the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) received a contract for a Climate Data Records program, which will create as many as 25 jobs at NCDC’s Asheville location. This is a remarkable opportunity for the National Climatic Data Center, the largest environmental data center in the world and the home of the world’s most impressive and comprehensive collection of climate data.
The success of NCDC, combined with the regional strength of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the increased broadband connectivity we are acquiring, should be a boon to Western North Carolina, allowing us to expand our climate research and create new high-paying, stable jobs in our area. This contact, and the 25 new jobs that come with it, is one more step forward in making our mountain region unsurpassed in climate research in America.
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