The bill amends the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965 to add new eligible uses for Economic Development Administration (EDA) grants: projects that facilitate the relocation of a ‘‘source of employment’’ from outside the United States into the United States, and projects that facilitate growth in the manufacturing sector. It inserts those new eligible purposes into multiple existing grant categories — public works, planning, training/research/technical assistance, and economic adjustment.
This is an eligibility expansion, not a new appropriation. It changes what EDA and its local partners can fund with existing grant authorities, potentially channeling federal development dollars toward reshoring strategies, manufacturing cluster support, and associated planning and workforce activities.
Implementation details (definitions, priorities, matching rules) will depend on EDA guidance and future appropriations decisions.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill amends four provisions of the Public Works and Economic Development Act to add two new eligible purposes: (1) facilitating the relocation to the U.S. of an employment source currently located overseas, and (2) facilitating manufacturing-sector growth. It applies these new purposes to public works grants, planning grants, training/research/technical assistance, and economic adjustment grants.
Who It Affects
Directly affected actors include the EDA, state and local economic development organizations and districts, community colleges and workforce trainers, and private firms considering or arranging relocations (and their supply chains). Indirectly affected are local governments that provide matching funds and communities targeted for site development or incentives.
Why It Matters
By altering eligible activities, the bill gives regions a federal funding pathway to subsidize infrastructure, planning, and cluster development intended to attract foreign-located employers. That can change regional development strategies, create new competition for federal grants, and shift accountability questions onto grant administrators and recipients.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The statutory edits are surgical: Congress is not creating a new grant program or authorizing additional money. Instead, the bill adds two policy goals — bringing employment sources located abroad into the U.S., and bolstering the manufacturing sector — to the list of activities the EDA may fund under existing authorities.
Because the changes span public works, planning, workforce, and economic adjustment grants, a wide range of project types could qualify if they can plausibly be framed as facilitating relocation or manufacturing growth.
Practically, communities could use EDA funds for site preparation, feasibility studies, marketing to potential relocating firms, cluster-building activities, and workforce training tied to a planned relocation. The bill inserts explicit language in the statute allowing planning grants and technical-assistance grants to cover assessment, marketing, cluster establishment, and other activities targeted at attracting or supporting relocated employers.
That means EDA recipients can propose projects that directly target attraction and onboarding of employers, rather than only traditional infrastructure or distress-mitigation projects.Crucially, the bill does not define key terms like "source of employment" or "facilitate the relocation." It also does not change grant formulas, matching-share rules, or evaluation criteria on its face. Those implementation details — what counts as sufficient facilitation, whether incentive packages qualify, and how to measure job creation — will be set by EDA guidance and by the text of future grant solicitations.
Because no new funding is authorized here, actual use depends on program priorities and appropriations by Congress.Finally, adding relocation and manufacturing growth to economic adjustment grants creates a channel for communities experiencing disruption or competing for new investment to access adjustment resources. That could speed investment-readiness in some areas, but it also places new pressure on local cost-sharing and on EDA to balance short-term attraction tactics against longer-term regional development goals.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill amends section 201(c) of the Public Works and Economic Development Act to add two new eligible public-works/economic-development purposes: facilitating relocation of a foreign-based source of employment to the United States, and facilitating manufacturing-sector growth.
Section 203(a) is changed to allow planning grants explicitly for projects that facilitate relocation to the U.S. or the growth of manufacturing, enabling feasibility studies and attraction planning as statutorily eligible planning activities.
Section 207(a)(2) expands the list of allowable training, research, and technical assistance activities to include assessment and marketing, establishment of business clusters, and activities specifically to facilitate relocations and manufacturing growth.
Section 209(a) — the economic adjustment grant authority — is amended to include relocation-to-U.S. projects and manufacturing growth projects among eligible economic adjustment activities.
The bill neither appropriates funds nor defines key terms (for example, "source of employment" or what actions "facilitate" a relocation), so actual use depends on EDA rulemaking, grant solicitations, and future appropriations.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Short title
Provides the statute's public name: 'Made in America Jobs Act of 2026.' This is purely nominative and has no legal effect on program implementation, but it signals congressional intent that reshoring and manufacturing be promoted through EDA authorities.
Adds reshoring and manufacturing to public works/economic-development grant purposes
The bill inserts two new numbered purposes into the EDA's public-works eligibility list: facilitating relocation of employment sources currently abroad, and facilitating growth of the manufacturing sector. For public-works projects, that broad language potentially authorizes funding for infrastructure that supports a relocating firm (roads, utilities, site prep) or projects meant to make an area competitive for manufacturing investment. The provision does not specify whether incentive payments, direct subsidies to firms, or real-property purchases count as eligible public works; those boundaries will be decided by EDA policy and grant terms.
Permits planning grants for relocation and manufacturing-targeted projects
By inserting relocation and manufacturing growth into the statute's description of allowable economic development planning, the bill makes it explicit that planning activities — feasibility studies, site assessments, attraction strategies, and similar preparatory work — can be paid for with EDA planning grants when they are tied to reshoring or manufacturing expansion. Practically, this lowers the legal barrier to seeking federal help for attraction campaigns, but grant applicants will still need to meet any existing matching or selection criteria in EDA program guidance.
Broadens training, research and technical assistance list to include cluster and marketing work
The amendment expands the enumerated technical-assistance activities to include assessment, marketing, cluster formation, and activities designed to facilitate relocations and manufacturing growth. This creates a clear statutory basis for the EDA to fund marketing campaigns, supply-chain assessments, and cluster-development programs aimed at attracting foreign-located employers or growing existing manufacturing bases. It also creates discretion for EDA to fund non-infrastructure interventions that are more strategic or promotional in nature.
Includes relocation and manufacturing in economic adjustment grants
Economic adjustment grants — which respond to job losses, industry shifts, and similar local economic shocks — will now explicitly cover projects aimed at bringing foreign jobs to the U.S. or growing manufacturing. That broadens the range of proposals a community can submit as an adjustment strategy, but it raises questions about how adjustment funds intended for distress relief will be balanced against proactive attraction efforts.
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Explore Economy in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Local and regional economic development organizations — The bill gives them statutory cover to propose EDA-funded attraction strategies, site prep, and cluster-building projects aimed at bringing overseas employers or expanding manufacturing.
- Workforce training providers and community colleges — Planning and technical-assistance grants can include training and research tied to incoming firms' needs, creating pathways for funded upskilling aligned with relocated jobs.
- Municipalities and states with available sites and matching capacity — Jurisdictions that can provide matching funds and prepared sites stand to attract EDA-backed projects and potential relocations.
- Domestic suppliers and manufacturing ecosystems — If relocations materialize, local suppliers and service firms could gain business from new manufacturing entrants and expanded domestic capacity.
Who Bears the Cost
- Economic Development Administration and federal budget — Although the bill does not appropriate funds, expanding eligible uses increases pressure on limited EDA resources and may reallocate grants away from other priorities.
- Local governments and EDA grant applicants — Many EDA programs require nonfederal matching or maintenance commitments; jurisdictions that pursue attraction projects may face upfront costs and financial risk if relocations fail to materialize.
- Communities competing for relocations — The amendment may intensify competition and incentivize bidding wars (tax or infrastructure incentives), shifting local budgets toward recruitment instead of other long-term investments.
- Smaller or resource-poor regions — Regions lacking capacity to prepare competitive applications, meet match requirements, or run sophisticated attraction campaigns may be crowded out by better-resourced places.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill pits two legitimate objectives against each other: speeding job creation and supply-chain resilience by using federal development dollars to attract or onboard relocated employers, versus protecting taxpayers and equitable regional development by avoiding incentive-driven distortions, unfunded local fiscal burdens, and unaccountable subsidies. Choosing one often increases risk on the other, and the statute leaves the balancing to agency implementation rather than to clear congressional rules.
The bill's practical impact hinges on four implementation questions the statute leaves open: how to define a "source of employment," what actions legally "facilitate" a relocation, whether incentive payments or direct subsidies to firms are within scope, and how EDA will weight these projects against traditional infrastructure or distressed-area priorities. Without statutory definitions, EDA rulemaking and grant solicitations will determine whether the new authorities fund earnest site preparation and workforce training or end up subsidizing aggressive corporate relocations.
A second tension is fiscal and distributive. The change creates a channel for federal support of attraction strategies, but no new money accompanies the authority.
That means EDA will need to prioritize among competing demands, and communities with matching funds and technical grant-writing capacity will likely capture disproportionate share. There are also trade policy and state-aid considerations: substantial federal support tied to relocating firms could draw scrutiny under international commitments or invite reciprocal measures from trading partners.
Finally, accountability mechanisms such as job-creation metrics, clawbacks, or minimum labor and environmental standards are absent from the statutory text, leaving enforcement to grant terms and agency discretion.
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