A bipartisan bill passed by Congress in 2019 aimed to prevent taxpayer money from going to transportation manufacturers with ties to the Chinese government.
The American Manufacturing Federation team spent much of last week United Steelworkers’ Immediate Response Our meeting in Washington, DC, ran behind schedule so we weren’t able to immediately share this good news from Capitol Hill: A bill has passed the House of Representatives that would finally close the loopholes that have allowed a Chinese state-owned enterprise with ties to the Chinese military to continue using federal taxpayer dollars to build rail cars.
Two-thirds of House members passed the Railroad Carriage Protection Act, introduced by Sen. Rick Crawford (R-Arkansas), chairman of the Steel Caucus, on May 21. The bill now heads to the Senate.
In 2019, Congress passed the Transportation Infrastructure Vehicle Security Act (TIVSA), which bans federal tax dollars from being used to purchase rail cars and buses manufactured by Chinese state-owned or controlled enterprises. However, in implementing the law, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Issued lifetime Exemption For state-owned enterprises that were awarded contracts before December 2019.
In effect, this means that the China Railway Carrier Corporation (CRRC) can keep making rail cars indefinitely for transit agencies in Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities. Crawford and others They argued that this runs counter to the TIVSA law, which aims to block Chinese government-owned or controlled companies from infiltrating the U.S. transportation system through taxpayer-funded infrastructure contracts.
“Despite our efforts, the Chinese Communist Party still maintains a foothold in the rail market through contract exceptions. Taxpayer dollars should not be spent by countries that continue to lie, steal and cheat in an attempt to drive America out of global markets.” Said “We need to protect our critical infrastructure from the Chinese Communist Party’s clutches,” Crawford said, who also serves as chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Highways and Public Transportation.
If the current loophole remains in place, CRRC would be barred from bidding on new federally funded contracts to build passenger rail cars, but would still be allowed to build new cars for systems it already has contracts for, allowing it to maintain a large foothold in the U.S. transportation infrastructure market.
And that has raised major economic and national security concerns. Added CRRC to the Entity ListThe company was identified as having ties to the Chinese military. Maintains close ties with the Chinese governmentA 2019 report found that China receives huge government subsidies as part of its drive to dominate the global transportation market.
In fact, these subsidies enabled CRRC to significantly underbid its competitors to win a contract to build rail cars in the U.S. When Philadelphia’s SEPTA system awarded the contract to CRRC in 2017, a spokesman for competitor Hyundai Rotem said: It pointed out“I don’t understand how they can do that at that cost.”
In the end, CRRC didn’t make it. The company was $50 million over budget and four years behind schedule in building rail cars for SEPTA. The agency said in April: Formally terminate the contract.
CRRC continues to build rail cars for federal taxpayer-funded projects in Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston. Those projects are not without their problems. The situation in Boston is Especially badLast month, local transit agencies announced they would pay CRRC an additional $148 million to finally complete the long-delayed contract, but nevertheless, thanks to the FTA’s flawed interpretation of the law, CRRC continues to operate in major U.S. cities.
Crawford is right to lead the effort to close this loophole, and we encourage the Senate to move swiftly to pass this bipartisan, commonsense legislation.
