INVESTING IN AMERICA: Secretary Buttigieg Delivers Remarks in Kokomo, Indiana, Highlighting the Domestic Manufacturing Renaissance in America’s Heartland

After touring manufacturing facilities, Secretary Buttigieg spoke to community members about the Biden-Harris Administration policies that are repositioning the U.S. to make lead the world in electric vehicle manufacturing - powered by American workers

KOKOMO, Ind. - Today, Secretary Buttigieg toured Stellantis and Samsung facilities in Kokomo, including a new EV battery manufacturing facility that is fueling a construction boom and adding thousands of jobs to the region. He also met UAW workers producing engines, including those for plug-in hybrid vehicles. Secretary Buttigieg later delivered remarks at Ivy Tech Community College, which is helping prepare the workforce for the skills of this exciting new clean energy manufacturing future.

The Biden-Harris Administration's Investing in America agenda-which includes the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act-is catalyzing private sector investments. Since January 2021, private companies have announced nearly $880 billion in new investment, including over $410 billion in clean energy manufacturing, EVs and batteries, and clean power generation. 

Secretary Buttigieg greets workers and learns about the plug-in hybrid engine at the Kokomo Engine Plant

The full transcript of Secretary Buttigieg's remarks:

Good morning,

First of all, thank you, John [Hollingsworth], and we are so thankful to all of the workers who are part of this. We're excited about what this moment means for the good paying jobs, the good paying union jobs in the building trades - building these facilities - and then the good paying union jobs working in these facilities.

And I bring greetings from President Biden and Vice President Harris, who very much view this as a moment for creating those kinds of jobs, and that's exactly what we're seeing at the facility we just toured, really, around the whole region. I want to thank Dr. Ethan Heicher for hosting us and the whole Ivy Tech Kokomo team. It's extraordinary to see how this institution has adapted so quickly with all of the needs that are coming your way and how you're preparing the generations of workers to succeed in this manufacturing Renaissance.

And a big thank you to YunJae Kim and the entire leadership of StarPlus, of Samsung, and of Stellantis, not just for today's excellent visit, but for investing in America, because that's what this is all about - so thank you very much.,

This is a real full circle moment for me. I've been looking forward to this one for quite a while because I am, myself, a product of the Industrial Midwest and, more specifically, out of Northern Indiana.

And I grew up in a city that was covered with acreage of factories that had a proud past building Studebakers, but a troubled present because, by the time I was born, those factories had already gone quiet for more than 20 years.

But even 20 years after that, when I was born, or 50 years after that, when I began to serve as mayor of my hometown, we felt the impact both in terms of the prosperity that those jobs had once brought and the pain that had come with their loss when America was not able to support that particular firm in its manufacturing. Which meant that also, as a young person growing up, every time I came down, U.S. 31 to Indianapolis for a school trip to the museum or a music competition, or whatever it was, I had a sense of what it meant that there was a very dynamic manufacturing present here in Kokomo, those two facilities, the ITP and the ITP2 on either side of the road and the jobs that those represented powering the entire middle class and working class this whole region. And I got into politics and public life, in a fight over the future of that industry, working to make sure that the rescue of Chrysler - that kept those factories up and kept those families in business - that that was supported and that had a chance to deliver the future that, I think then we couldn't have guessed in our wildest dreams would bring us to a moment like this.

I remember when I was first making friends at Howard County and knocking on doors around Kokomo, the unemployment rate approaching 19 percent and we knew that it could hit 40 if these companies were allowed to go out of business - as many were proclaiming on op-ed pages America ought to do - but instead something different happened.

I was just that the Kokomo Electric plant, formally the Engine plant formally, the ITP2. Last time I was in that building, it was to be a member of the audience as President Obama and Vice President Biden came to celebrate the turnaround and the comeback there. So, it is thrilling, and I think a little bit poetic, for me, to have the privilege of being here now on behalf of President Biden and Vice President Harris and this Administration to celebrate the extraordinary work that's going on - the innovation, the job creation, the growth, and the opportunity that is at hand.

You know, there's been a lot of talk that came to this region and regions like it over the years, but nobody in my lifetime has followed through from Washington the way that this Administration has. And the focus on American manufacturing, the American-made products, and American workers has characterized this Administration and delivered big results. Under President Biden and Vice President Harris, the U.S. has created nearly 800,000 manufacturing jobs, which is especially impressive when you consider that, just under the previous administration, we lost manufacturing jobs and experienced a manufacturing recession.

What I've seen here is not just the volume of manufacturing, but the quality of it, the sophistication, and the advancement, which is part of why the skills of our union workers and the skills being cultivated at an institution, like Ivy Tech, in partnership with our schools, is so important. And it's great to see the jobs that are being created - even before that facility is fully up and running - with the good building trades jobs that are going to get that ready. Those jobs and then, of course, the jobs that will be created at the facility, itself, aren't just making batteries.

They are making livelihoods. They represent presents under the tree. They represent education for kids; they represent cars and trucks in the driveway for so many families in this area. And of course, it's especially exciting to see how Stellantis and Samsung have partnered up right here, in Howard County and in Kokomo.

This is a unique facility and extraordinary thing, but there are opportunities and good news announcements like this happening all across the country. And part of that we believe is driven by our once-in-a-generation infrastructure improvements, our insistence that companies receiving American taxpayer dollars use products and make products here in America, our multi-billion-dollar investments in the manufacturing of the future.

Companies are seeing this, and as they prepare for that EV future, they understand that the best way to capitalize on that future is to invest right here in America. So far, we count 400 new or expanded facilities since the start of this Administration - processing materials, manufacturing batteries, and assembling EVs. And those facilities alone are projected to create about 140,000 jobs.

And just last month, we announced over a billion dollars in awards that will support 11 factories across eight states going through transitions, including the other ITP here in Kokomo, that's going to see new life and energy joining that EV economy.

I'm also proud of how the workers and the companies investing here have broken the old false choice between doing the right thing for climate and creating jobs. This is what the climate jobs look like; some call them green collar jobs, I think they're good, old-fashioned blue-collar jobs. But however, you want a characterize them, they are the jobs of the future.

I also do want to make a point of lifting up the bipartisan group of governors, including Governor [Eric] Holcomb, who have expressed their recognition about something that's already very clear and obvious to workers in the community here, which is, that in the long run, electric vehicles are going to be remembered, not as some front in an invented culture war between red and blue America, but as a front in a very real global competition between the U.S. and countries like China, through the future of manufacturing.

Building EVs and the components that go in them is one of the best ways we can secure these good paying careers on American soil. And I know the workers and the students here take pride in knowing that they are helping America win that global competition. We're trying to try to gain a competitive edge in the EV Market. We are working to ensure that America leads in building that electric vehicle future, and we're working in ways to make sure the Midwest is the center of it.

I got tired long ago with articles that characterized our part of the country as the "Rust Belt." Right now, we see the beginnings of the "Battery Belt," with more growth to come for the balance of this decade and beyond.

And again, we're supporting this not just directly with industrial policy, but with infrastructure policy to make sure that the supply chains work, whether it's the roads and bridges we're fixing, the railroads we're investing in, or ports, which includes not just vehicle-receiving ports on the East Coast or container shipping ports on the West Coast, but the places I was in earlier this week in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Menominee, or Manitowoc, and Milwaukee in Wisconsin where they are making supply chains stronger across the Midwest and supporting our manufacturing economy as they do.

And this of course is a bigger picture, part of a bigger picture, as the Administration is working across our economy to lower costs as well as create jobs. So, I couldn't be more excited about the moment that we're in, the turnaround that a place like Howard County, Indiana has seen, the future that is in front of us, and the innovation yet to come, because we are still very early in the days of the electric vehicle industry that will dominate the automotive sector for the balance of this century.

And yet, we've already seen so much change. The biggest change to come to the automotive sector really since Elwood Haynes had his vehicle up on the Pumpkinvine Pike here. And I know the Haynes Apperson festival was just a few weeks ago - I wonder what they'll be thinking when we are 130 years from now.

But we're not going to have to wait that long to see the transformation in prosperity as well as technology that is marked by this moment.

So, I want to congratulate and thank everybody who is part of this moment. Because this is what America's manufacturing comeback looks like.

Thanks for the chance to joining and celebrate today. Keep up the great work.

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