§8302 American Materials Required for Public Use

Summary

Federal agencies must buy raw materials only if they were mined or made in the United States. They must buy manufactured goods only if those goods were largely made in the United States from U.S. materials. An agency can ignore this rule if it finds the rule would hurt the public interest, the cost is unreasonable, or U.S. sources do not have enough quantity or acceptable quality. The rule does not apply to items used outside the United States, to items bought under a reciprocal defense procurement agreement or certain trade agreements or least developed country rules, or to purchases at or below the micro-purchase threshold in section 1902 of this title. The Director of the Office of Management and Budget, with the Administrator of General Services, must report on how much agencies bought from suppliers outside the United States. That report is due not later than 180 days after the end of the fiscal year in which the Build America, Buy America Act was enacted, and then once a year for 4 years, to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Intelligence community agencies (as in section 3 of the National Security Act of 1947, 50 U.S.C. 3003) are excluded from the report. Iron and steel count as U.S.-made only if every step of making them, from the first melting to applying coatings, happens in the United States. All iron and steel items are covered by these rules, even if they would normally be treated as commercial off-the-shelf.