TPT March 2016

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116 MARCH 2016
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März_mit Messeeindruck_Tube&Pipe_125x180_4c.indd 1 10.12.2015 11:02:29
This end-run around the plain intent of the Buy American Act
was not in itself very remarkable. (Noel Brinkerhoff reported
on [14 September] that the inspector general of
the Department of Defense found procurement violations in
fully one-third of federal contracts in a sample batch examined
by the agency.) But the two exemptions from the policy of
using American steel exclusively led to a lawsuit against the
FHWA in which manufacturers were joined by a labour union
and a trade group.
Granting summary judgment to the plaintiffs, Judge Mehta
found that the FHWA regulators had improperly dealt
themselves the exemptions and moreover apparently pulled
the rationale for one of them “out of thin air”. He harked back
to the 1997 FHWA memorandum that declared the iron and
steel content necessary to warrant an exemption. In his view,
neither then nor in the present case has that percentage
been explained – still less justified. “The [FHWA] says nary
a word about why 90 per cent was chosen as the threshold
value to mean ‘predominately,’” wrote Judge Mehta, who was
nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama. “Not a
single word. And defendants’ post-hoc efforts to rationalise the
choice of that number ring hollow.”
› Whether the ruling in this case will revive anti-protectionist
sentiment against the Buy American Act remains to be
seen. But the title of Mr Brinkerhoff’s article in AllGov – “Half of
Navy Contracts Violate Buy American Rules” – suggests that,
at the very least, notice has been taken of dubious compliance
with the strictures of the law, even at quite high levels.
Elsewhere in steel . . .
› A former Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Co site in Benwood,
West Virginia, has been repurposed as a facility for
inspecting and threading pipe for the natural gas industry.
The Intelligencer and Wheeling News-Register reported on
7 December that JLE Industries (Dunbar, Pennsylvania)
invested over $6mn in refurbishing the 80,000-square-foot
plant. Closed for 20 years before JLE began the conversion in
July of last year, it was set for a January opening. The pipe is
to be retrieved from drilling sites. Before processing it will be
scanned for defects by magnetic resonance imaging.
Rules on Drones
Federal reasser tion of command of US
airspace opens a rift with local authorities on
the regulation of recreational drones
“New York City is different from the cornfields of Iowa. That
should be obvious to everyone, but it isn’t reflected in FAA
rules.” It was only a matter of time before someone – in this
case, New York City Council member Daniel R Garodnick
– joined the issue of differences between the US Federal