Michael (Mike) Ireland, president and CEO of the Portland Cement Association (PCA), has written to US President Donald Trump to express the need to restart public works programmes and designate the cement industry as an 'essential industry' that is also listed as a 'critical manufacturing' industry with the Department of Homeland Security.
"Increasingly, the COVID-19 crisis and necessary government response activities, including travel restrictions, shelters in place, quarantines, and other social distancing methods, pose challenges to the cement industry which produces essential materials that build and maintain our nation’s critical infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, tunnels, hospitals, buildings, pipelines, dams, levees, and water treatment facilities.
"In this crisis, the Administration should recognise that the cement industry provides essential building materials for our critical infrastructure and, as such, should designate the industry as an essential and critical manufacturing industry," said the PCA in its letter.
As an essential industry, the PCA also requested that the cement industry is added to the 'Critical Manufacturing' category in the Guidance issued by the Department of Homeland Security issued Guidance on the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce on 19 March 2020.
