Wes Hickman or Kevin Bishop

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today announced the U.S. Department of Commerce has awarded the National Textile Center a $9.78 million grant to conduct research in new textile technologies. Clemson University is one of the founding members of the eight-university Center. The grant will be used by the universities to research advanced textile technologies to improve the long-term global competitiveness of the domestic textile and apparel industry. “Clemson University is on the cutting edge in textile research,” said Graham. “This grant will allow the university to study new technologies and work toward a more level playing field. This is a step forward for the textile industry. Unfortunately, I don’t believe it will solve all of our problems.” The Center focuses on textile research, education and partnerships. Researchers design and develop new materials, and also work to improve manufacturing methods. Since its founding, Congress has invested more than $82 million in textile research at the Center. “Our textile industry has been hard-hit by unfair, foreign competition,” said Graham. “We’ve lost tens of thousands of jobs over the past decade. Until we stop agreeing to bad trade deals that ship our jobs overseas, in the coming years we face the real possibility of more job layoffs in the textile industry. It’s hard for our domestic textile industry to compete with countries that have no labor standards, no minimum wage, no government regulations and often use slave labor in their factories.” The National Textile Center is made up of Clemson, Auburn University, Georgia Institute of Technology, North Carolina State University, University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, Philadelphia University, University of California Davis and Cornell University.