I 
113TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 3346 
To amend chapter 83 of title 41, United States Code, to increase the require-
ment for American-made content, to strengthen the waiver provisions, 
and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
OCTOBER 28, 2013 
Mr. LIPINSKI (for himself, Mr. ADERHOLT, and Ms. SHEA-PORTER) intro-
duced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Over-
sight and Government Reform 
A BILL 
To amend chapter 83 of title 41, United States Code, to 
increase the requirement for American-made content, to 
strengthen the waiver provisions, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Buy American Im-
provement Act of 2013’’. 
SEC. 2. STRENGTHENING AND SIMPLIFYING FEDERAL PRO-
CUREMENT POLICIES. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—Not later than one year after the 
date of the enactment of this Act, the Administrator for 
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Federal Procurement Policy, in consultation with the Fed-
eral Acquisition Regulatory Council, shall promulgate reg-
ulations to standardize and simplify how Federal agencies 
comply with, report on, and enforce chapter 83 of title 
41, United States Code (commonly known as the Buy 
American Act). The regulations shall include, at a min-
imum, the following: 
(1) Guidelines for determining, for the purposes 
of applying sections 8302(a) and 8303(b)(3) of such 
title, the circumstances under which the acquisition 
of articles, materials, or supplies mined, produced, 
or manufactured in the United States is inconsistent 
with the public interest. 
(2) Uniform procedures for collecting, report-
ing, and making publicly available information about 
waivers under chapter 83 of such title, including— 
(A) procedures for making a request for a 
waiver publicly available before granting the 
waiver; and 
(B) procedures for providing the rationale 
for why a waiver is granted. 
(3) Rules to ensure that projects are not 
disaggregated for purposes of avoiding the applica-
bility of the requirements under chapter 83 of such 
title to such larger project. 
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(4) Procedures for investigating waiver re-
quests. 
(5) Rules for evaluating the percentage of do-
mestic content in a manufactured end product. 
(b) GUIDELINES
RELATING
TO
INCONSISTENCY 
WITH PUBLIC INTEREST.—In the guidelines developed 
under subsection (a)(1), the Administrator shall consider 
any significant decrease in employment in the United 
States resulting from the granting of waivers to be incon-
sistent with the public interest and seek to minimize— 
(1) the granting of waivers that would result in 
a decrease in employment in the United States in 
both the short- and long-term; and 
(2) the granting of waivers for procurement of 
articles, materials, or supplies mined, produced, or 
manufactured in a foreign country with which the 
United States does not have a relevant trade agree-
ment and which has a government that maintains, 
in regard to government procurement, a significant 
and persistent pattern or practice of discrimination 
against products produced in the United States. 
(c) PROCEDURES RELATING TO THE PUBLICATION 
OF REQUESTS FOR WAIVERS.—In the procedures devel-
oped under subsection (a)(2)(A), the Administrator shall 
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require the head of a Federal agency, after receiving a 
request for a waiver, to complete each of the following: 
(1) Publish the request for a waiver on a pub-
licly available website of the agency in an easily 
identifiable location within 15 days after receiving 
such request. 
(2) A waiver may not be issued before the expi-
ration of the 15-day period beginning on the date on 
which the request for waiver is published pursuant 
to paragraph (1) to provide the public an oppor-
tunity for notice and comment. 
(d) PROCEDURES RELATING TO THE PUBLICATION 
OF WAIVERS GRANTED.—In the procedures developed 
under subsection (a)(2)(B), the Administrator shall re-
quire the head of a Federal agency to publish the deter-
mination for why a waiver was granted and the rationale 
for such determination in the Federal Register and on a 
publicly available website of the agency in an easily identi-
fiable location not later than 30 days after the head of 
the agency determines to issue such waiver. 
(e) RULES RELATING TO DOMESTIC CONTENT.—In 
the rules developed under subsection (a)(5), the Adminis-
trator shall not consider as domestic content components 
of foreign origin of the same class or kind as those that 
are not mined, produced, or manufactured in the United 
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States in sufficient and reasonably available commercial 
quantities of a satisfactory quality. 
(f) DEFINITIONS.—In this section: 
(1) FEDERAL
AGENCY.—The term ‘‘Federal 
agency’’ means any executive agency (as defined in 
section 133 of title 41, United States Code) or any 
establishment in the legislative or judicial branch of 
the Federal Government. 
(2) RELEVANT TRADE AGREEMENT.—The term 
‘‘relevant trade agreement’’ means— 
(A) a reciprocal defense procurement 
memorandum of understanding, as described in 
section 8304 of title 41, United States Code; 
(B) any trade agreement for which the 
President, or his delegate, has issued a blanket 
waiver under section 301 of the Trade Agree-
ments Act of 1979 (19 U.S.C. 2511); and 
(C) any trade agreement described in sub-
part 25.4 of the Federal Acquisition Regula-
tion. 
(3) WAIVER.—The term ‘‘waiver’’ means, with 
respect to the acquisition of an article, material, or 
supply for public use, the inapplicability of chapter 
83 of title 41, United States Code, to the acquisition 
by reason of any of the following determinations: 
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