A recently signed executive order aims to ensure that advanced technologies developed in the United States are also manufactured domestically.
President Biden signed an order late last month that emphasizes a policy of “invent it here, make it here,” which administration officials said would, in effect, help turn research and development (R&D) into new manufacturing jobs. The White House said that technologies pioneered in America are too often ultimately produced overseas — even when federal dollars were instrumental in creating those new systems.
The order, in part, encourages federal agencies to consider domestic manufacturing in their solicitations for research funding — including by adding a manufacturing provision to government technology development guidelines and ordering agencies to take the nation’s economic interests and national security into account when making its award decisions.
It would also modernize the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s iEdison reporting system — an effort to improve tracking of federal research dollars as those projects move toward commercialization and production — and require agencies to report on their R&D initiatives to a director in the Office of Management and Budget beginning within two years.
The White House said the executive order would also strengthen and streamline the waiver process for award recipients who want to operate manufacturing facilities outside the U.S. Waiver applicants would need to specify the reasons behind their decision and detail the labor and environmental conditions under which overseas production would occur.
Administration officials stressed that although the order would help directly support American jobs, they also aim to preserve companies’ abilities to create international partnerships — which remain crucial to U.S. economic security and supply chain reliability.
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