A chemical manufacturer in Michigan thinks the pigment that gives road markings their distinctive yellow color should be included in Buy America laws.
Just outside of Muskegon, Mich., set back from the road behind a line of trees, is the last factory in the United States making the pigment that gives road paint its easily identifiable yellow color. More importantly, this pigment serves as a safety element that reduces accidents.
Most of us never think about how the pigments in everyday products are made, let alone where. But this branch of Sun Chemical, a 200-year-old leader in the field of color materials with operations all over the world, has been at work in West Michigan for over 40 years. Its unionized, long-tenured, and highly skilled local workforce operates this last-of-its-kind facility at only 30 percent capacity.
Plant officials worry they will be the next in a long line of chemical manufacturers who have ceased production in the U.S. market because of the difficulty of competing with unfairly produced imports. But, in an effort to save the factory, the company is pushing lawmakers in Lansing to take up state-level Buy America legislation that would cover their pigment. While many states go beyond federal Buy America standards to cover state-level spending, Michigan would be the first to apply the designation to yellow pigment for traffic paint.
Federal Buy America laws – which set government procurement preferences for American-made goods when they’re competitively priced and available in sufficient quantity – are longstanding at the federal level. In 2021, Congress passed the Build America Buy America Act as part of its $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, aiming to ensure that the U.S. reinvests infrastructure tax money back into American workers, manufacturers and communities. The federal government also has a new Made in America Office at the Office of Management and Budget that is working to coordinate this effort. Buy America has long enjoyed bipartisan support because of its simple and straightforward commitment to the domestic economy.
In the chemical industry, import competition is driven almost entirely by China, where production has risen in step with the battery industry and larger automotive sector. The rise has been deliberate; chemical manufacturers in China have benefited from significant direct and indirect subsidies from China’s government. Their investment has drawn the global chemical market from the United States, the former leader in chemical manufacturing. As recently as 2022 China accounted for 44% of global chemical production and 46% of the industry’s global capital investment. Lax environmental and labor regulations also contribute to the lopsided market.
When it comes to chemicals used in color material for traffic paint, more than 96% of yellow road markings in the United States now use foreign-made pigment. Chinese chemical manufacturers sell road marking pigment to vendors in the United States at prices that undercut U.S. companies.
American chemical workers have already lost jobs to unfair pigment import competition. Another 120 in Michigan face a similar fate without intervention. Sun Chemical welcomes the opportunity to increase capacity beyond its current thirty percent; their facility is capable of producing more than a hundred pigment shades that its customers use to make printing inks, coatings, cosmetics and plastics. Importantly, more than jobs are at stake when American manufacturing is lost. Sun Chemical has partnered with the state of Michigan and the Environmental Protection Agency to remediate the contaminated groundwater at a nearby Superfund site, using the water for manufacturing before delivering it pre-treated to Muskegon’s water treatment facility.
Buy America preserves and secures our manufacturing future at companies like Sun Chemical, allowing workers to support their families and good corporate citizens to support their communities.
The Alliance for American Manufacturing always has its eye on this kind of legislation when it moves in both Washington and in state capitols. This cycle, we are watching it in Oklahoma and Kentucky. If and when Michigan picks up, it should include chemical production so that we are no longer ceding this market to competitors so heavily backed by a foreign government.