Advocacy - McWane, For Generations

Made from post-consumer material, ductile iron pipe can last more than a century when properly installed and is recyclable at the end of its useful life, reducing energy consumption and cost. Don’t gamble with America’s environmental or human health. Contact your representatives today and urge them to invest in ductile iron pipe. It’s what America is built on.

Here are the causes for which we are advocating today.

Buy American

McWane – your trusted provider of guaranteed American-made waterworks products.

McWane employs more than 4,000 team members who safely and sustainably manufacture ductile iron pipe, soil pipe, fittings, hydrants and valves in facilities in the United States. Our products comprise the backbone of the vital water distribution and wastewater treatment systems throughout North America and dependably provide the United States with clean drinking water.

McWane is committed to American workers and American industry. At a time when many of our competitors have moved their manufacturing operations overseas or elected to import foreign products at the expense of American jobs, McWane has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to modernize its U.S. plants and make them safe, efficient and compliant with the world’s most demanding regulatory regime. In doing so, it has created and preserved thousands of well-paying American jobs and the futures of many communities.

U.S. taxpayer dollars should not be used to reward those companies that have moved their operations, investment dollars and jobs to foreign countries, nor should they be used to purchase iron products cast in foreign foundries that completely disregard environmental, worker and workplace safety regulations. Rather, taxpayer-financed federal aid programs — particularly those administered by the federal agency charged with protecting the environment — should give a commonsense preference for American-manufactured products in infrastructure projects. Such preferences ensure that companies and workers who play by the rules can compete on an even playing field to supply these taxpayer-financed infrastructure projects.

Buying American means reinvesting U.S. tax dollars in the U.S. economy. Buying American means preserving and creating jobs here in the United States. Buying American is good public policy and is simply the right thing to do.

If you have specific questions, we encourage you to contact us. You can also view our full list of American-made product offerings here.

If this issue is important to you, please contact your congressional representatives.

Why Buy American?

Strengthen Your Economy and Preserve Your Environment

Unfair competition from foreign producers threatens the future of American manufacturers and workers while destroying our environment. Reports show that Buying American helps to strengthen the economy, creates new jobs and promotes responsible, environmental practices. Read a more thorough investigation about the benefits of Buying American below.

Understanding the "Buy America" Requirements for Water Infrastructure Projects

Since 2014, the U.S. Congress has on multiple occasions passed legislation that supports the jobs of thousands of hard-working Americans. This legislation requires that all iron and steel products used in water infrastructure projects funded by the Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Funds and Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program must be produced in the United States. McWane is your go-to source for the high-quality domestic iron products that comply with these requirements.
Buying American, Supporting the Economy

This document describes how unfair competition from foreign producers threatens the future of American manufacturers and workers, while at the same time destroying our environment. Our tax dollars should be used to Buy American-manufactured goods for taxpayer-financed projects, thus creating and preserving millions of high-paying jobs, slowing the migration of jobs and investment to other countries and protecting our environment for future generations.
Buy American, Buy McWane

McWane is the leader of the waterworks manufacturing industry, setting standards nationwide for sustainable manufacturing processes that protect American jobs, the environment and the health and safety of its team members. This report describes some of McWane’s efforts.
Made in China: The Threat to our Environment

This report details the devastating impact on the environment resulting from the migration of manufacturing jobs and operations overseas. Chinese iron foundries and steel mills generate significantly greater pollution for each ton of castings shipped than a foundry in the United States and pose an immediate threat to the environment here in the United States.
Americans Overwhelmingly Support Buying American

A recent and extensive bipartisan survey, sponsored by the Alliance for American Manufacturing, demonstrates that more than 90% of American voters support Buy American policies and rank jobs as their top priority for Washington (even over the deficit). This report outlines the details of those survey results.
Buy America Works

Buy America is a proven job creation tool that is broadly supported by Congress, the American people and hundreds of local governments throughout the United States. Buy America provisions should continue to be utilized in infrastructure and other spending bills so that our manufacturing base can thrive and so that more Americans can earn a paycheck and contribute to the overall welfare of the nation. This report contains numerous stories describing the success of "Buy America" requirements in both saving or creating manufacturing jobs and capacity in the midst of a severe economic downturn.

Local Choice in Material Selection

Discussions of a failed policy mislabeled as "open competition" or "open procurement" are making their way around Congress. This failed, special interest policy seeks to undermine the ability of engineers, utilities, public entities and other water works professionals to design water projects in the manner that best serves the needs of their local communities.

This national effort is intended to benefit one industry in the marketplace, and it has received widespread opposition from groups such as engineers, utilities, contractors, architects, public entities and the business community. This special interest policy is neither practical nor necessary, and it is nothing more than a top-down, government solution to a problem that does not exist.

Engineers have professional, ethical and legal responsibility for their design decisions, and there is no evidence that engineers or local communities have been creating erroneous or otherwise improper specifications for water projects. Unfortunately, this special interest policy will undermine their ability to meet their obligations, subject them to additional red tape, and may expose them to new litigation. If passed, this policy will delay much-needed water projects and increase costs. Our nation's water systems are too important to enact this type of policy. Numerous states have rejected this proposal. Congress should not allow special interests to undermine the ability of local communities and engineers to best serve the public.

America's Water Infrastructure Challenge

Our water infrastructure was installed by our great grandparents. Cast iron pipe served their communities then and is still serving many of them today.

Now, it is time to replaces these infrastructures with state-of-the art durable and safe ductile iron products. True to its benefits, ductile iron pipe has a long life, is corrosion resistant and has high structural strength and tight joints, which all contribute to the length of service time to our municipalities and utility and industrial piping systems.

It is time to provide the infrastructure to provide clean water for our grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Here you can find information and resources about the need to replace the current aging infrastructure. In addition, you can find what needs to be done to address this need and the challenges ahead.

“A new kind of challenge is emerging in the United States, one that for many years was largely buried in our national consciousness. Now it can be buried no longer. Much of our drinking water infrastructure, the more than one million miles of pipes beneath our streets, is nearing the end of its useful life and approaching the age at which it needs to be replaced. Moreover, our shifting population brings significant growth to some areas of the country, requiring larger pipe networks to provide water service.”

At McWane, we proudly make ductile iron pipe. Today, McWane deploys state-of-the-art equipment and techniques to this time-honored craft of manufacturing ductile iron water and waste water infrastructure.

You Can Make a Difference

By contacting your local member of Congress, you are making your voice heard. Follow the steps below to contact your local member of Congress today.

Enter YOUR address to search for your congressman
Select who you’d like to contact by clicking on their name
Select a cause, copy the text within the gray box
Click "Contact Congress Member" at the bottom of the page
When the webpage opens, navigate to the contact page for that congress member and paste the copy into the message field they provide

Address

District	Congressman

Select a Cause

The Honorable [Name]
United States [Chamber]
Washington, DC [Zip]

Dear [Title] [Name]:

Our nation must make significant investments to install, upgrade or replace our drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. As we invest in our nation's water infrastructure, American taxpayers expect, now more than ever, that the iron and steel products incorporated into these taxpayer-financed projects will be manufactured in America by American workers.

The vast majority of Americans support domestic preferences in taxpayer-financed infrastructure spending. They believe that our tax dollars should be reinvested in our taxpayers, thereby preserving and creating jobs in the United States. This overwhelming support is owed to a shared recognition that U.S. taxpayer dollars should not be used to reward those companies that have moved their operations, investment dollars and jobs to foreign countries, foreign mills and foundries that completely disregard environmental, worker and workplace safety regulations.

Our government procurement policies should not be divorced from our regulatory policies. To the contrary, taxpayer-financed federal aid infrastructure programs – particularly those administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, which is charged with protecting the environment – should give a commonsense preference for the products of American companies and workers who continue to manufacture in the United States in accordance with the nation’s stringent regulatory requirements, continue to invest in their U.S. operations, modernizing plants to make them safe and efficient, continue to create and sustain jobs here in the United States. Buy America procurement preference policies ensure that companies and workers that play by the rules can compete in U.S. taxpayer-financed government procurement markets.

I urge your support for the application of Buy American policies to the nation’s taxpayer-financed water infrastructure programs. These smart policies create demand for domestically produced goods and help to sustain and grow domestic manufacturing and the millions of upstream supplier and service provider jobs that it supports. Support Buy American policies for water infrastructure; it is simply the right thing to do.

Thank you

Contact Congress Member

McWane Advocacy

Buy American

Why Buy American?

Local Choice in Material Selection

America's Water Infrastructure Challenge

You Can Make a Difference