The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) reports that during a recent panel discussion to mark the 10th anniversary of the Department of Homeland Security, current secretary of homeland security, Janet Napolitano, and former secretary, Tom Ridge, “expressed serious concerns about America’s increasing reliance on overseas producers. Specifically, the two say this dependence can slow the nation’s ability to recover from a crisis."

One area in particular that both Secretary Napolitano and Ridge highlighted as one of concern was the nation’s power grid. Governor Ridge said, “Take a look at critical pieces of our infrastructure that we have offshored. And so that if you have a problem with the electric grid, if you have problems in other areas of economy, the dependence, our international dependency on basic manufacturing goods is a national security problem.”

Secretary Napolitano said, “Utilities use these big transformers to supply power. They are all made overseas. We have lost any domestic production whatsoever. And they’re big and they’re really expensive and they take a long time to move. After Sandy, we needed transformers and that whole process, I think, fed into some of the delay in getting the lights back on.”

In 2012, Governor Ridge and Colonel Robert Stephan, a former assistant secretary for homeland security for infrastructure protection, co-authored a report published by the AAM, found the United States “at risk of being dangerously unprepared for serious emergencies” due to offshoring of critical manufacturing sectors.