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Congress approves manufacturing program--with an asterisk

Congress finally gave President Barack Obama the national manufacturing network he has been asking for. But the proposal that has become law appears to have a big asterisk attached to it.

The bill creating a National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) passed Congress as part of the big 2015 appropriations bill passed at the end of December. NNMI was established based on legislation called the Revitalize American Manufacturing and Innovation (RAMI) Act, supported by both Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate. (The original bill, sponsored by Rep. Tom Reed, R-N.Y., and Joseph P. Kennedy III, D-Mass., passed the House by unanimous consent in September, but Senate Democratic leaders were unable to schedule a floor vote. That’s how it ended up in the recently passed government funding bill.)

The idea is to build a network of manufacturing research centers, called institutes, where small and medium-sized companies can go to learn about cutting-edge manufacturing technologies. President Obama has created four of these on an ad hoc basis but wanted Congress to authorize a national program with its own budget. So far the administration has taken funds from existing budgets at places like the Department of Energy and the Pentagon to fund the four institutes, whose sponsors must match the federal funds. Those four institutes—America Makes, formerly the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, Youngstown, Ohio; the Next Generation Power Electronics Manufacturing Innovation Institute, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, N.C.; the American Lightweight Materials Manufacturing Innovation Institute, Detroit; and Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute, Chicago—have been administered out of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

But here is where things get tricky. The version of RAMI that Congress passed does not allow for future appropriations. In other words, Congress cannot provide the program with a separate budget. Instead, it will be beholden to funds lifted out of the budgets of two already existing federal programs: $250 million from the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and $50 million from the NIST’s Industrial Technical Services program. The total of $300 million covers a 10-year span. This provides $30 million a year in funding to be funneled to the four new institutes.

In a funding sense, that puts the NNMI in a tenuous situation; it is dependent on funding from other federal agencies. On the floor of the House, when the bill came up for a vote, Kennedy underscored this situation.

“After we pass this bill, I look forward to working with my colleagues on the appropriations committee to provide much-needed funding for the network of manufacturing innovation,” he said.

Part of Congress' reluctance to provide a separate appropriation may have had something to do with the fact that NIST already funds a separate Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program on which the NIST spent $608 million in fiscal years 2009 through 2013. Congress has voiced concern in the past few years over how that money is spent and distributed.

About the Author

Stephen Barlas

Contributing Writer

Stephen Barlas is a freelance writer that has more than 30 years of experience covering Congress, the White House, and the many regulatory agencies found in Washington, D.C. He has covered issues affecting the metal fabricating industry for The FABRICATOR for more than a decade.