WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham’s (R-South Carolina) legislation to provide tax credits and incentives to move the production of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) from China back to the United States serves as the core of the China related provisions of the HEALS Act stimulus package introduced today in the U.S. Senate.

PPE is a critical national security need for the doctors, nurses, and healthcare providers fighting COVID-19. Today, an estimated 90 percent of the PPE used in the United States is produced in and imported from China. 

The Graham legislation, Restoring Critical Supply Chains and Intellectual Property Act, includes:

• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), such as clothing, sanitizing supplies, ancillary medical supplies (wipes, bedding, test swabs, etc.) and other textile equipment must be grown, reprocessed, reused, or produced in the United States.

• The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will immediately begin increasing procurements of domestic PPE for the Strategic National Stockpile incrementally and reach 100 percent domestic sourcing as soon as practicable within five years.

• HHS also must submit a plan to Congress within 90 days detailing how they will reach 50 percent domestic sourcing in one year, 75 percent in 18 months, and 100 percent in two years. 

• Establishes a $7.5 billion medical manufacturing project tax credit to buildout and retrofit factories to meet increased PPE demand.

“Coronavirus has been a wakeup call for America,” said Graham. “Ninety percent of the PPE that our doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers use to keep us safe is made in China. We’ve become captive to China. This legislation will 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,” continued Graham. “This tax credit will help revitalize an industry and bring it back to the United States. No longer will we be beholden to China.

“The goal is to have one hundred percent American-made in the strategic stockpile of PPE within five years,” concluded Graham. “I made a promise to the state of South Carolina that I would work to end our dependency on China for PPE. This bill is fulfilling that promise.”

The bill text can be found here.

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