White House Pushes Domestic Manufacturing.

• Author: Lee, Nooree
• Position: GOVERNMENT CONTRACTIIVG INSIGHTS

On Sept. 19, the Government Services Administration issued a request for information regarding domestically manufactured solar photovoltaic panels and systems, as well as system installation. Responses are due Nov. 18. The RFI's emphasis on U.S. manufacturing and clean energy technology is no accident. Rather, it is a natural result of the Biden administration's intense focus on these policy areas.

The administration jumpstarted clean energy efforts in the procurement space in December 2021, when President Biden issued Executive Order 14057, "Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability."

That order directed government to "transform federal procurement" and adopt sustainable practices, with the ultimate objective of net-zero emissions by 2050. To achieve net-zero emissions, the executive order and an accompanying federal sustainability plan set various policy goals, including an initiative to develop onsite "carbon pollution-free electricity" generation --defined as energy produced from various resources that generate little or no carbon emissions--for federal facilities, as well as an initiative to enter into power purchase agreements with carbon-free producers.

The administration's prioritization of clean energy has been mirrored by an equally intense focus on domestic manufacturing. In January 2021, President Joe Biden issued Executive Order 14005, "Ensuring the Future Is Made in All of America by All of America's Workers." That order was targeted at strengthening existing domestic preference laws, including by establishing a new Made in America Office to oversee domestic preference requirements in federal procurements and by issuing an updated final rule increasing both the domestic content threshold under the Buy American Act and the price preferences for qualifying products.

The Office of Management and Budget formally established a Made in America Office in April 2021, and the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council subsequently issued the requested Buy American Act final rule in March 2022, which increased the domestic content threshold and established a framework wherein "critical" items would receive a higher price preference. The government reserved identification of those critical items for a subsequent rulemaking.

Other policy directives have focused on incentivizing domestic production. In June 2022, the administration invoked the Defense Production Act to accelerate domestic production of clean...