President Barack Obama will unveil a series of executive actions Monday designed to boost manufacturing, including spending $300 million on technologies considered critical to the nation’s competitiveness.
The actions follow the final report of Obama’s Advanced Manufacturing Partnership that makes recommendations to train workers and improve the business climate.
Obama is holding a meeting at the White House Monday with the partnership's steering committee, a working group of the President's Council of Advisors in Science and Technology.
NASA and the departments of Defense, Energy and Agriculture will invest more than $300 million in the technologies of advanced materials including composites and bio-based materials, advanced sensors for manufacturing, and digital manufacturing, according to the White House.
In addition, manufacturers will be provided access to expanded state-of-the-art facilities, the Department of Labor will launch a $100 million apprenticeship grant competition and the Department of Commerce’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which serves over 30,000 U.S. manufacturers each year, will launch a competition for $130 million across ten states to help small manufacturers adopt new technologies.
In response to an earlier report of the partnership, which began in June 2011, Obama has launched four manufacturing innovation institutes with four more on the way; invested nearly $1 billion to upgrade community colleges to train workers for advanced manufacturing jobs; expanded investments in applied research for emerging, cross-cutting manufacturing technologies; and launched a new initiative to help returning veterans secure in-demand jobs, including in advanced manufacturing.
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