KANSAS CITY, Kan. (WIBW) – As Congress prepares a comprehensive bipartisan bill to lower costs and fix the nation’s supply chain, U.S. Representative Sharice Davids visited Kansas businesses to get their input on how the bill could help them.
U.S. Congresswoman Sharice Davids (D-KS) says she visited three Kansas manufacturers as part of her Made in Kansas tour to hear straight from local businesses as she works to pass bipartisan supply chain and manufacturing policy in the nation’s capital.
Throughout the week, Representative Davids said she shared her efforts to lower costs and support domestic manufacturing from railroad construction materials to life-saving medical supplies.
Recently, Davids said she met with President Joe Biden to emphasize the need to fix our supply chains and address costs by making more goods stateside. Now, she said she has been named to the conference committee, a bipartisan group of Senators and Members of Congress to negotiate a final supply chain bill to send to Biden’s desk.
As one of the two Kansas lawmakers chosen to serve on the committee, Davids said she visited several local manufacturers to hear their priorities ahead of the negotiations.
At A&K Railroad Materials, Davids said she shared her support for investments in infrastructure and domestic supply chains and heard about the company’s impact on both the local economy and transportation networks.
At Knit-Rite, a medical textile manufacturer, Davids noted that she discussed her work to support American-made medical supplies, especially small and mid-sized manufacturers. She said her amendment to the supply chain package, which passed the House earlier in 2022, would ensure small businesses are considered in upgrades to the medical supply chain – not just big corporations.
Lastly, at Stryten Energy, a leading manufacturer of advanced battery and energy storage technology, Davids said she discussed her work to support innovation and workforce development so Kansas workers can continue to compete against countries like China.
Davids said she has been a leader on the House version of the supply chain bill, the America COMPETES Act. She said the comprehensive economic package contains several priorities for the Sunflower State – including investments in domestic semiconductor “chip” production.
The Congresswoman said she has met with several local businesses impacted by the chip shortage, including the Fairfax General Motors plant which sat idle for months in 2021 and local medical device suppliers who have struggled to serve patients.
Additionally, Davids said the bill includes resources to strengthen supply chains, reduce inflation, and promote American global leadership at a crucial time. She said increased competition from China has cost the U.S. about 985,000 manufacturing jobs between 1999 and 2011.
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