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.

Policymakers periodically push measures intended to limit government contracts to companies that manufacture products made with a certain percentage of domestic content – some proposals have gone as high to require 100 percent.  Examples of discriminatory domestic content provisions were recently seen in President Obama’s proposed America Jobs Act and in legislation introduced by Congressmen Nick Rahall (D-WV). OFII opposes domestic content restrictions because they result in costly and unrealistic new regulations for small businesses and multinational companies whose businesses rely...

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...