Reno Reporter

U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto from Nevada recently announced that she is working to address domestic manufacturing issues and ease supply chain disruptions.

Cortez Masto believes that increasing manufacturing jobs in the U.S. would help protect against future supply chain disruptions, Las Vegas Sun said. The senator is promoting legislation dubbed the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, which would boost domestic manufacturing and research and development. The bill recently passed the House and is now headed to conference committee.

"I’m focused on bringing good-paying manufacturing jobs back to Nevada," Cortez Masto wrote in a Feb. 27 Twitter post.

The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act would provide billions of dollars to advance the domestic semiconductor manufacturing industry and establish an initiative to strengthen domestic supply chains.

“We have the businesses, the ability and the workforce to bring that supply chain here to the United States,” Cortez Masto said, according to Las Vegas Sun. “We can bring manufacturing back to the United States, address where we see high prices and work to keep costs down and build what we need here. We have the technology. We need to be more competitive globally.”

Recent supply chain bottlenecks as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought a renewed focus on producing goods domestically. Nevada was especially hard hit by the pandemic due to its impact on the tourism industry, one of Nevada's most profitable sectors. 

The manufacturing sector has lost seven million jobs since its peak in 1970, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.