By U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King
We’ve all seen them: the now-lifeless, brick-clad factories that sit on street corners and river banks across Maine – relics of a bygone era of manufacturing. Some of us may even have stories of a time when they brimmed with activity; of how they provided stable jobs and decent wages for our families and that of our friends and neighbors.
Unfortunately, those stories are fewer and far between today, and for a variety of reasons – perhaps none more-so than the simple fact that the world has changed rapidly and significantly over the past few decades. The introduction of new, cutting-edge advancements in technology, which continue to take hold with each passing day, have changed the landscape of manufacturing in Maine and America. Indeed, the manufacturing industry of today is not the manufacturing industry of our parents’ or grandparents’ generations. Less important now is how many hundreds of pounds of raw material someone can lift onto a conveyor belt, and more important is how many lines of a diagnostic report on high-tech machinery someone can read.
America, however, is still the leading manufacturer in the world. As the National Association of Manufacturers observed, “Taken alone, manufacturing in the United States would be the 10th largest economy in the world.” But while we may still be number one in the industry, our competitors are increasingly closing the gap, and we cannot afford to be knocked off the top of the world’s economic pyramid. Perhaps now more than ever before, we must take steps to ensure that manufacturing is not only alive and well, but that it has the resources to thrive for generations to come. Doing so will require us to look forward to a new era of manufacturing: one forged by the strength of our minds, and one where Congress does all it can here at home to enact policies and initiatives that will make it easier, not harder, for our manufacturers to succeed.
The President has proposed an initiative that would bolster manufacturing here at home while bringing it back from abroad. The plan calls for the creation of regional institutes of innovation that will be led by businesses and work in collaboration with academia, states, and nonprofits to more quickly and efficiently shepherd innovative ideas from the research and development stages to the production and implementation stages.
It’s an idea that’s new to America, but not to other top manufacturing countries throughout the world, like Germany and Japan. Germany alone has sixty institutes led by industry and they employ approximately 20,000 people – and that statistic doesn’t even begin to include estimates of the number of jobs created by the private sector, drawing on the economic boost provided by the institutes.
It’s a tried and proven model worth replicating here in America – and to help accomplish that, the entire New England Congressional delegation recently joined together to support a joint application by businesses, academic institutions, individual states, and non-profits to help secure a $70 million award to establish a New England-based innovative manufacturing institute with centers of excellence in every state. The ultimate goal is to achieve an entirely new level of collaboration and partnership among the entities in New England that will create a seamless transition from research and development to workforce training, increasing manufacturing output and creating more stable, good-paying jobs here at home where they belong.
Additionally, in five years the federal government will no longer financially support the institutes, which will at that time transition to become solely run by industry. It’s critical that government fosters development, but it’s also important that it step aside at the right time to allow businesses to do what they do best – innovate and create jobs.
While this is an extremely competitive award, with several regions across the country applying for limited resources, we have great confidence in New England’s application and we are proud to support it. To that end, we will be dogged in our determination and unwavering in our support to make sure that Maine and New England have both the resources and tools of tomorrow for today’s manufacturing.
Let’s revive those old New England mills; let’s give life to them again and bring back the jobs – but in order to do that, and in order to stay ahead of our world competitors in manufacturing, we must recognize the changing world around us and adapt to move Maine forward. There is more we must do, that we can and will do, but first, we must set this valuable foundation. We can’t afford not to.
