Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed a Bureau of Reclamation contract award to determine whether it complied with the Buy American Act.
GAO found that: (1) the act prohibited the use of foreign construction materials for public construction work done in the United States; (2) the solicitation for the prime contract allowed the use of foreign construction materials only if they were listed separately and were clearly lower in price after adding a price differential; (3) both the government and private-sector officials responsible for awarding the prime contract and subcontracts confused the act's requirements for determining construction material origin; (4) the Bureau improperly included the costs of domestic labor to attach parts to imported products and manufacturing overhead and general and administrative expenses in the domestic component costs; and (5) the Bureau should have required that the prime contractor use domestic products, since the awardee's domestic component costs fell below 50 percent of the total subcontract costs after exclusion of the two improperly added costs.
