Baldwin, Vance Bipartisan Bill to Ensure Taxpayer-Funded Inventions Are Made in America Advances in Senate

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and J.D. Vance (R-OH) announced their Invent Here, Make Here Act of 2023 advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee. The bipartisan legislation ensures taxpayer-funded inventions are not manufactured in adversarial countries like China, but rather, in the United States. The bill builds on bipartisan legislation championed by Senator Baldwin and signed into law that requires taxpayer-funded research that leads to inventions that boost national security are made in the United States.

"To me, it's simple: when we invest taxpayer dollars in research and innovation, those advancements should support American workers and businesses, not China. For too long, American innovation was sent overseas for production, taking the jobs and economic growth with it," said Senator Baldwin. "Our bipartisan legislation makes sure that American companies are first in line to produce these taxpayer-funded inventions, creating jobs in up-and-coming industries and ensuring American manufacturing stays on the cutting-edge."

While current law requires federally funded inventions to be manufactured in the United States, the requirement is often waived, allowing cutting-edge, taxpayer-funded technologies to be licensed to foreign companies and manufactured in countries like China. In a noteworthy example of the flawed process, an investigative report in August 2022 found that a breakthrough battery technology invented in a federal lab had been licensed to a Chinese company and was being manufactured in China.

The Invent Here, Make Here Act would prohibit waivers for applications that intend to manufacture in a "country of concern" - currently China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. The legislation would also increase scrutiny of waiver requests, requiring written authorization by the President of the United States.

The bipartisan legislation will also help American companies access and manufacture inventions developed with tax-payer-funded research. The bill requires the National Institute of Standards and Technology to improve coordination with other federal agencies to encourage the commercialization of federal research by domestic manufacturers and ensure that projects funded through the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships Directorate at the National Science Foundation prioritize domestic manufacturing.

In the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Senators Baldwin and Rob Portman (R-OH) included a provision to strengthen the waiver process for inventions resulting from federal research at the Department of Homeland Security. These new rules added an additional layer of review for all waivers and prohibited waivers for companies that will manufacture in hostile countries.

The legislation now heads to the Senate floor for a full vote.

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