American-Made LED Lighting — US Manufacturing Since 1957

A 70-Year Story (1957–2026)

Clear-Vu Lighting was founded in 1957 on a single premise: design and manufacture industrial-grade lighting fixtures in the United States, from the ground up. Sixty-eight years later, we operate out of the same discipline — one company, one focus, one address in Central Islip, NY.

The intervening decades were not kind to domestic manufacturing. From the 1980s through the 2010s, imported lighting — first from Taiwan, then from mainland China — compressed fixture pricing to levels that pushed most US manufacturers to offshore their production or exit the market. Clear-Vu did neither. We kept every aspect of manufacturing at the Long Island facility, maintained our UAW workforce, and made the calculation that quality, compliance, and engineering responsiveness were worth more than landed-cost savings from overseas sourcing.

That bet has been vindicated repeatedly: by every federal procurement that required domestic-origin documentation, by every transit authority that needed a custom fixture geometry that no catalog manufacturer could provide, and now by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s Build America Buy America requirements, which — for the first time — require federal infrastructure grantees to verify domestic manufacturing across the entire supply chain.

What “American-Made” Actually Means in Lighting

The phrase “American-Made” appears on a surprising number of lighting manufacturers’ websites. The regulatory reality is that many of these claims would not survive a BABA compliance audit. Understanding the distinction between assembled in the USA and manufactured in the USA is essential for any specifier working on federally funded projects.

The Buy American Act (BAA)

Enacted in 1933 and codified at FAR Part 25, the BAA applies to direct federal agency procurement. Under BAA, an end product qualifies as domestic if it is manufactured in the United States and the cost of US domestic components exceeds 60% of total component cost (the threshold was raised from 55% in 2024, with further increases scheduled). A fixture assembled in the US from primarily imported LED boards and drivers may still qualify under this cost test.

Build America, Buy America (BABA)

BABA, enacted as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 and administered through Build.gov, applies to any infrastructure project receiving federal financial assistance — including FTA grants for transit, FAA AIP airport funds, FHWA highway funding, and EPA water infrastructure grants. For manufactured products, BABA requires that the product be manufactured in the United States. The “assembled here from imported parts” approach that passes BAA’s cost test may not satisfy BABA’s manufacturing standard.

Trade Agreements Act (TAA)

The TAA applies to certain GSA schedule contracts and allows products manufactured in TAA-designated countries (which excludes China) to satisfy domestic sourcing requirements. Note that TAA-compliant does not mean BABA-compliant — a fixture manufactured in a TAA country but not in the United States still fails BABA requirements.

The Central Islip Facility

Our manufacturing facility is located at 1150 Motor Parkway, Central Islip, NY 11722 — a single Long Island address where we have designed, tooled, and manufactured industrial lighting fixtures for seven decades. This is not a warehouse, a distribution center, or a final assembly point for imported subassemblies. It is a manufacturing plant.

The facility operates under an ISO 9001 quality management system, which governs incoming materials inspection, in-process quality controls, and final product testing. Our engineering capability includes in-house CAD/CAM using UG NX for fixture and tooling design, and we operate in-house plastic injection molding for custom optical components and fixture housings. This vertical integration is what allows us to respond to custom geometry specifications that no catalog-only manufacturer can accommodate.

• ISO 9001 quality management — full traceability from raw material to shipped fixture
• In-house plastic injection molding — custom lenses, housings, and optical components
• CAD/CAM engineering (UG NX) — design, tooling, and fixture development under one roof
• LED module assembly and driver integration — performed on-site, not outsourced
• In-house photometric testing — supports custom IES files for specifier use
• Same-day plant tours available by appointment for specifiers and procurement teams

Union-Made by UAW Local 259

Clear-Vu Lighting is a Union shop, represented by UAW Local 259. Every fixture that leaves Central Islip is built by trained union workers operating under a collective bargaining agreement. This is not a marketing credential — it has direct implications for project procurement and workforce quality.

What Union Manufacturing Means in Practice

• Trained, tenured workforce: UAW workers are not seasonal or temporary labor. Low turnover means workers have deep institutional knowledge of our fixture geometries, assembly tolerances, and quality standards.
• Prevailing wage compatibility: For public projects subject to Davis-Bacon prevailing wage requirements, Union-Made manufacturing is structurally compatible with the same wage framework — reducing documentation friction in procurement.
• Supply-chain reliability: A stable workforce with strong institutional knowledge reduces the defect rates and rework cycles that plague manufacturers who rely on high-turnover assembly labor.
• Social compliance: UAW-represented manufacturing in the United States meets the labor standard requirements of federal procurement and many institutional sustainability policies.

BABA & BAA Compliance — How We Document It

As of 2026, 74 fixtures in the Clear-Vu catalog have been verified BABA-compliant through component sourcing audits. This means we have traced the country of origin for every major subassembly — LED modules, drivers, housings, lenses, mounting hardware, and electrical components — for each of those fixtures and confirmed that the manufacturing standard is met.

For specifiers and procurement teams working on BAA- or BABA-covered projects, we provide the following documentation on request:

• Compliance letter on company letterhead referencing Central Islip, NY manufacturing facility address and the applicable standard (BAA and/or BABA)
• Component sourcing audit trail identifying country of origin for LED modules, drivers, housings, lenses, and hardware
• UL listing documentation referencing our US manufacturing address
• Mill certifications for iron and steel components where applicable
• Complete compliance package assembled pre-bid for large projects

The full table of BABA-compliant fixtures, sortable by application and fixture type, is available at our BABA Compliance page. Compliance letters for specific fixtures are available on request — contact sales@clearvulighting.com or call 516-941-3737.

Why Specifiers Choose American-Made

The procurement case for American-made lighting extends well beyond compliance checkboxes. Specifiers who have worked with both domestic and imported fixture sources consistently cite these factors:

Federal and State Procurement Eligibility

BABA-covered projects — which now include virtually all federally funded transit, airport, highway, and water infrastructure — are closed to fixtures that cannot document US manufacturing. Specifying a domestic manufacturer at the outset eliminates the risk of a compliance hold at bid submission or a change-order demand after award.

Supply Chain Resilience

The 2020–2022 supply chain disruptions exposed the risk of specifying fixtures that depend on single-source overseas component supply. Our Central Islip manufacturing allows us to carry domestic component inventory, qualify alternative domestic suppliers for key components, and absorb supply disruptions without passing lead-time delays to the project.

Custom Engineering Responsiveness

Many of our largest deployments — including 15+ NYC MTA subway stations with 20+ unique fixture geometries — required fixtures that did not exist in any manufacturer’s catalog. Our in-house CAD/CAM and injection molding capability means we can develop custom optics, housings, and mounting configurations without international tooling lead times or minimum order quantities that make customization prohibitive.

Reduced Specification Change Lead Times

When a project requires a mid-specification geometry change or a custom color temperature, coordinating that change with an overseas factory can take weeks or months. The same change coordinated with our Central Islip engineering team can happen in days — often without a tooling change at all.

Same-Day Facility Tours

We invite specifiers, engineers, and procurement professionals to tour the Central Islip facility at any time. Seeing the manufacturing process firsthand is the most effective way to validate compliance claims and evaluate product quality — and it’s an experience no overseas manufacturer can offer on a same-day basis.

Notable American-Made Deployments

Clear-Vu Lighting fixtures have been specified and installed in some of the most demanding, highest-profile infrastructure and institutional projects in the United States. Every fixture shipped to these projects was manufactured at our Central Islip facility and delivered with full compliance documentation.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Is Clear-Vu Lighting really American-made?

  Yes. Clear-Vu Lighting has manufactured LED and fluorescent industrial fixtures at our Central Islip, NY facility since 1957 — not assembled here, but manufactured here. We do not source finished fixtures from overseas and rebadge them.

• What’s the difference between BABA and BAA?

  The Buy American Act (FAR Part 25) applies to direct federal agency procurement and uses a 60% domestic component cost threshold. Build America Buy America (part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, administered at Build.gov) applies to all federally funded infrastructure and requires the product to be manufactured in the United States.

• Are all 74 fixtures BABA-compliant?

  Yes — 74 fixtures in our current catalog have been verified BABA-compliant through component sourcing audits. The full fixture list is available on our BABA Compliance page.

• Do you provide compliance documentation for federal projects?

  Yes. We provide compliance letters on company letterhead, country-of-origin documentation, and component sourcing audit trails for any fixture being specified on a BAA- or BABA-covered project. Contact sales@clearvulighting.com to request documentation.

• Can we tour the manufacturing facility?

  Yes — we offer same-day plant tours for specifiers, engineers, and procurement professionals at 1150 Motor Parkway, Central Islip, NY 11722. Contact us at 516-941-3737 or sales@clearvulighting.com to schedule.

• How does Union-Made affect lead times and cost?

  Union manufacturing (UAW Local 259) means a trained, tenured workforce — which translates to consistent quality, predictable lead times, and compatibility with prevailing wage requirements on public projects. It does not inherently increase project cost when factored against reduced risk of specification changes and compliance re-work.