Elissa Slotkin

MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI — U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, visited Sun Chemical near Muskegon to highlight the importance of domestic manufacturing and reducing reliance on foreign supply chains.

The visit on Monday, May 4, highlighted the Paving the Way for America Industry Act, a bipartisan bill that prioritizes American-made materials over foreign imports and helps ensure critical manufacturing, like pigment production, remains in the U.S. rather than outsourced to foreign countries.

Slotkin in February announced she had cosponsored the bill alongside Sen. Jon Husted, R-OH. The bill is currently being discussed at the committee level, she said.

“Right now, we have Buy American requirements on things like defense items. Our military can’t buy stuff from China to build our submarines and tanks, so why do we have that on our roads when we have American companies that make this stuff,” Slotkin said.

U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten, D-Grand Rapids, first introduced a bill in the House of Representatives last summer that would amend the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to include certain yellow coloring as construction materials under the Build America, Buy America Act.

“If you want something to pass in this day and age, it needs to be bipartisan and bicameral — both in the Senate and the House — and this is a bill that has that,” Slotkin said. “That says a lot about this issue. I think the path forward this year looks positive.”

Sun Chemical’s facility at 4925 Evanston Ave. in Egelston Township is the only U.S. producer of the yellow pigment used to paint America’s roads, yet it only supplies 4% of American demand — with the rest imported.

“We sell a very small amount of pigment into the traffic paint industry,” said Brian Panczyk, chief manufacturing officer and president of color materials at Sun Chemical. “Most of it is produced in China. You can imagine what happens if that sourcing disappears and everything has to be sourced from overseas. It puts the country at risk.”

While Sun Chemical’s Egelston Township plant is the primary manufacturer of the yellow pigment in the U.S., it is not the only U.S. factory capable of producing it. The company has a secondary facility in Illinois for backup operations.

The Egelston Township facility employs 120 people, about 71% of whom are unionized. These union employees earn an average of $57,116 per year, according to a Muskegon County memo.

Even though it is a key employer in Muskegon County, the facility is only operating at about 30-40% capacity, said John Nichols, president of United Steelworkers Local 987 in Muskegon, which represents workers at Sun Chemical.

“There are times where we’re 15 days into the month and almost done with our schedules, so this bill will help,” he said.

While the current bill only focuses on yellow pigment, Slotkin emphasized “Buy American” requirements should extend to critical items such as food and cars as a matter of national security.

“We’re never again going to make Rubik’s Cubes or ladies’ razors in the U.S., but critical items like chemicals, our defense industry, the food that we eat every day — there are certain critical items that should always be made in America, and I think chemicals are one of those industries,” she said.