U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) today spoke with the media about the importance of securing a reliable domestic supply chain of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) following a tour of the Parkdale Mills manufacturing facility in Gaffney. Parkdale Mills is the largest cotton yarn spinner in the United States and has helped lead a coalition of textile and apparel companies to produce millions of face masks for frontline healthcare workers.
Graham has lead the effort to ensure the United States is no longer reliant on China for critical PPE. In early May 2020, Senator Graham introduced the COVID-19 Accountability Act, which called for a domestic purchasing requirement of PPE for the Strategic National Stockpile. In July 2020, Senator Graham introduced the U.S. MADE Act which again called for strict purchasing requirements of PPE and a manufacturing production tax credit to further spur domestic manufacturing and job creation.
The provisions outlined in the U.S. MADE Act will be included in the upcoming CARES II package.
GRAHAM: “What have we learned from the coronavirus? It’s been a wakeup call for America. Ninety percent of the personal protective equipment that our doctors and nurses and our healthcare workers use to keep us safe is made in China. And we’ve become captive to China — the entire world has. So I have legislation that I’ve been working on with the South Carolina textile industry, really the national textile industry, to bring back the medical supply chain into the United States. The road to bringing back medical supplies to the United States, when it comes to PPE, runs through the state of South Carolina.”
