“It one of the most significant, long-term term thinking about the bills that we passed in a very long time,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (DN.Y.) said Wednesday. “Yesterday I told our congregation that our grandchildren would good-paid work in industries that we can’t even imagine, because of what we are doing now. … It will pass down as one of major bipartisan achievements of this Congress.
Check also includes about $100 billion in permissions over five years for programs such as expanding the National Science Foundation work and the creation of regional technology nodes to support start-UPS in areas of country that traditionally drawn big financing for tech.
“This investment will pay off in the long run. way in reversal decline in federal [research and development] that rate has fallen by a factor of three since 1978,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell (R-Wash.), Chair of Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. “AND more Scattered innovation, you never know where next Bill Gates or Bill Boeing will happen and what innovations they can bring up with”.
Check next moves to the House of Representatives, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) declared that support for pass. Key Members of Congress said it could pass the bill on President Biden’s desk towards the end of a week.
Biden said the law one of top priorities on his agenda and he called for Congress to get the bill on your table like soon as possible.
“We are close. We are close,” Biden said on Monday. in meeting at the White House with business and trade union leaders. “So let’s do it. So much depends on It.”
Commerce Minister Gina Raimondo, who led White House lobbying efforts for account noted on Monday that the United States used to make 40 percent of in the world chips, but now it’s about 12 percent – and “practically none of in leading-edge chips, which come almost entirely from Taiwan.
US has invested “almost nothing” in semiconductor manufacturing, she said, while China has invested $150 billion in build its internal capacity. Raimondo also said it critical for United States to be able compete with countries around world which provided subsidies to semiconductor companies for build factories.
“Chip funding will be the deciding factor on where these companies decide to expand,” Raimondo said. “We want they, we need them to expand here in United States.”
On Wednesday, Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) key Republican Party representative on legislation, argued that there was no more important competition how one for “technological superiority” between the US and China.
“The result will shape in global balance of power for decades and will affect the security and prosperity of all Americans,” Wicker said. “Unfortunately, we are not currently in in the driver’s seat on a range of important technologies. There is China. China and other countries are becoming more dominant in tech innovations that pose a huge threat not only to our economy but to our national safety.”
White House also pointed out the shortage of semiconductor chips as national safety issue. In an interview on Tuesday with Washington Post Live Senator Kirsten Cinema (D-Arizona) original co-founder of bill, said some senators joined a secret briefing a few weeks ago where they learned about some of geopolitical problems of the United States facing.
“And it helped create a greater sense of of urgently hopefully in both the House of Representatives and the Senate… help everyone sees how important and how it’s urgent,” Cinema said. ” good news is that we were able to quickly respond to it. And I’m looking forward to the end of week, our account will be on President’s desk.
The passage of the bill by the Senate on Wednesday was the culmination of years of quest Sumer, who long ago warned of the threat that China rise posing USA global economic leadership and national safety. Three years ago, Schumer began work on a preliminary bill. with Senator Todd K. Young (R-Ind.) and Legislation took winding path to pass — undergoing at least five renamings and countless revisions before it is passed on Wednesday as the Chip and Science Act. of 2022″.
“Idea of investment in companies and in science took back seat for in last 30 or 40 years old in partly because Democrats don’t want to help companies and Republicans said they did not want industrial policy, just be non-intrusive,” Schumer said. in interview on Wednesday. “It took long time to convince people that it was so important and so necessary.”
Schumer and Young assembled powerful panel of supporters from outside politics, including corporate leaders and academic luminaries who helped build support for legislation through party lines. The addition of semiconductor provisions, originally supported by Senators John Cornyn (D-Tx) and Mark R. Warner (D-Virginia), further expanded coalition behind check.
But the score hit hitch after political hitch — including an ultimatum in late June from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), who threatened to reject the bill if the Democrats abandoned them party-line plans to pass sweeping economic legislation that would, among other things, repeal the Republican tax cuts in 2017. Schumer said he called dozens of corporate leaders in a few days later asking them to contact Republican senators in support of check.
“We knew that they would not resist McConnell, but [they could] go to McConnell and say that we really want to pass this bill,” Schumer said.
After all, it was a Democrat. who may have cleared a checkpoint: Senator Joe Manchin III (DW.Va.) said earlier this month that he would not support reversing the 2017 tax cut, which gave Republicans space to back from McConnell’s ultimatum.
Sumer declined to comment Wednesday on whether the bill was passed worth what price. He said the law would “create innumerable jobs” and allow America to “rethink our place in this is world economy”.
“In the old days we used to just let’s say our corporations left on they will make their own just good,” he said. “But now we have nation-states that heavily subsidize science, research and advanced manufacturing, and if we do nothing, we will become second-rate economic power within one generation.”
While the bill received bipartisan support, some key Republican senators voted against. Opponents include outgoing Senators Richard S. Shelby (Alabama) and Patrick J. Toomey (Pennsylvania). Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) also opposed the bill, although Lockheed Martin chief executive Jim Tyclet wholeheartedly supported the bill. in his meeting with Biden this week, stressing that semiconductor chips critical component of Javelin missiles that are being manufactured in Alabama.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who It has criticized bill as one it would be give “blank checks to profitable microchip companies” also objected to the law and spoke before final vote that he needs stronger fences. The CHIPS and Science Bill contains provisions prohibiting companies from using the funding they receive for share buyback or payment of dividends.
Young, co-author of legislation, pushed back on Criticism of Sanders of account, saying that he saw it as national investment in security.
Ronald Reagan often said that defense this is not a budget issueYang said. in Washington Post Live interview on Tuesday. “You spend what do you need if it is economy during the course of the pandemic has not demonstrated anything until today, this is what we need en economy that is more stable.”
Pelosi promised move fast on account as soon as arrives in house. Tan event in Michigan on Friday with union leaders and the state’s congressional delegation, she said there are some support for bill among GOP legislators in house.
“They understand, national security aspects of it,” Pelosi said. “I don’t know how a lot of [Republican votes] we get it, but it will be bipartisan.”
Jeanne Whalen contributed to this report.
