From performing advanced research in clean energy technology to providing the latest defense technologies and supplying emergency vaccines, U.S. subsidiaries actively partner with the U.S. Government on issues of critical importance. Although U.S. subsidiaries employ millions of American workers, their “foreign” heritage is frequently leveraged against them to overturn existing contracts or deny access to new government contracts. OFII opposes such discriminatory restrictions and works to ensure an open, competitive U.S. procurement process.

Some U.S. federal agencies and certain Members of Congress periodically push measures intended to limit government contracts to companies that are headquartered in the United States. .  OFII seeks to combat these efforts and believes it is important to keep the procurement process free from political influence. Most recent example of such restrictions are found in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) passed by Congress in 2009. The restrictions were opposed by a broad coalition of domestic and international companies as well as several trading partners.

OFII advocates for non-discriminatory treatment of foreign companies and their U.S. subsidiaries in the bidding process for the management of state and local infrastructure projects, including public-private partnerships. Recent examples of PPPs where discriminatory, anti-Insourcing rhetoric was employed in the debate includes the Pennsylvania Toll Road project in 2008.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued a funding notice (FOA) in June 2009 blocking Insourcing companies from applying for projects $150 million in R&D funding through the ARPA-E program. OFII worked to educate the  DOE and Members of Congress about the negative consequences of cutting out American Insourcing companies. In late 2009, the DOE officially stated that Insourcing companies were eligible to bid for future rounds of the program.

The United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Rural Development Program is tasked with improving rural America by distributing loans and grants. One such program, the Repowering Assistance Program, makes payments to those biorefineries that use renewable biomass over fossil fuels when choosing a fuel source to power their facilities. According to Section 9004 of the Repowering Assistance Program, a biorefinery is only eligible to receive grant money if it is at least 51% owned by U.S. citizens or U.S. nationals. Many U.S. subsidiaries employ tens of thousands of U.S. workers, invest into...