With the end of the year quickly approaching, lawmakers are hoping to make progress on priority legislation including budget reconciliation and supply chain resiliency.
The Supply Chain Resiliency Act, introduced by Senator Sherrod Brown would create a special office at the commerce department to identify vulnerabilities and provide funding to small manufacturers.
“If we begin to reshore, bring these jobs manufacturing jobs back to the Midwest especially where so many of them were lost both the major assembly plants and all the suppliers into the assembly plants we start bringing those back. We can fix our supply chain much more quickly.”
Senator Brown says it’s also critical to prioritize rural child care, climate change, and conservation investments included in the president’s build back better agenda.
“For farmers in the largest basin and feeding grade lay any of the great lakes in the river basin, northwest Ohio some of the best farmland American matters for what’s happened to algae blooms in the lake and what that means for water quality. It invests more in conservation than any law since the dust bowl. And so, this this speaks exactly to rural America. Those of us that represent rural areas had a lot of input in this law.”
He also applauded the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill which he says will make broadband more accessible.
“We know that in western Ohio, where it’s flatter. Broadband accessibility is a problem in southeast Ohio and Appalachia. You’ll hear it’s even more of a problem and it’s a problem in the cities and we know that matters on medical care, telemedicine, we know it matters for education. I talked to a junior high kid who told me that she had to go up to her grandmother’s house to study who lived on a hill. So, all of that investment is going to matter.”
The package also included Brown’s Bridge Investment Act, to provide $12.5 million to repair and replace significant bridges.
“I grew up working in a family farm near Mansfield. And I remember driving a tractor with a hay wagon or with oats in the back or wheat in the back of the of the wagon. Over little culvert bridge. We have 3000 bridges in Ohio alone which are which are in various states of disrepair and that matters for farmers getting their goods to market.”
An additional $17 billion was secured for port and waterway infrastructure, which is expected to support supply chain resiliency long-term. Brown has also introduced the sustainable skies act, to incentivize more biofuel use in jet fuels.
Related:
How national security is being impacted by supply chain disruptions
Ag’s resiliency may rest on broadband connectivity