SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING BUY AMERICA.

SEC. 1928. SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING BUY AMERICA. It is the sense of Congress that— (1) the Buy America test required by section 165 of the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 (23 U.S.C. 101 note) needs to be applied to an entire bridge project and not only to component parts of such project; (2) the current application by the Federal Highway Administration of the Buy America test, that is only applied to components or parts of a bridge project and not the entire bridge project, is inconsistent with this sense of Congress; (3) the law clearly states that domestic materials must be used in Federal highway projects unless there is a finding that the inclusion of domestic materials will increase the cost of the overall project by more than 25 percent; (4) uncertainty regarding how to apply Buy America laws for major bridge projects threatens the domestic bridge industry; (5) because the Nation's unemployment rate continues to hover around 5.6 percent, steps are needed to protect American workers and the domestic bridge building industry; and (6) the Buy American Act (41 U.S.C. 10a et seq.) was designed to ensure that, when taxpayer money is spent on direct Federal Government procurement and infrastructure projects, these expenditures stimulate United States production and job creation.