The publication is reproduced in full below:
Semiconductors
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, it has been more than a year since the U.S. Senate passed the bipartisan U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, commonly known as USICA. It includes an important provision that Senator Mark Warner, the Senator from Virginia, and I introduced more than 2 years ago called the CHIPS Act, which is designed to shore up a dangerously vulnerable supply chain of high-end semiconductors from Asia to the United States.
The fact is that the United States makes zero percent of those advanced semiconductors that are necessary for everything from your iPhone to fifth-generation Joint Strike Fighters like the F-35.
Unfortunately, after we passed the bipartisan bill in the Senate, the House decided to go the partisan route and add additional, unrelated pieces of their wish list, everything from handouts to labor bosses to money for a U.N. climate slush fund.
We were in the process of stripping out these partisan provisions through the conference committee that was appointed by the House and the Senate when Senator Schumer made a big decision. He said that Democrats were likely to bring to the floor another reckless tax-and-
spending bill like Build Back Better, although in a different version. Our Democratic colleagues got the bright idea that they wanted to revive something like the Green New Deal, increase taxes on working families, and give runaway inflation even more staying power.
Well, Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, and Members of the Republican conference thought that was a bad idea and said that there would not be a bipartisan conference bill and a partisan, reckless tax-
and-spending spree bill. It wasn't a threat; it was just a statement of fact. There is no such thing as negotiating with our Senate colleagues on the Democratic side while they sit on the sidelines drafting partisan legislation.
The provisions negotiated out of the bipartisan bill wouldn't land in the trash; they would simply be recycled through a partisan reconciliation bill. But Senator Manchin, the Senator from West Virginia, put an end to that last week when he killed the bill that would increase taxes on families and small businesses and implement costly Green New Deal climate policies. In my book, that is a big win for the American people, who are already facing high prices at grocery stores and at the filling station.
With this reckless tax-and-spending spree reconciliation bill dead and buried, there is now an opening to do something that we can agree upon on a bipartisan basis. I spent the weekend talking with a number of our colleagues, both Republicans and Democrats, and I am cautiously optimistic that we can now proceed to a vote on the USICA bill or some version of it. Based on our discussions, it sounds like the majority leader will bring a narrower bill to the floor that focuses on chips funding--again, something that has been pending now for more than 2 years--as well as tax incentives for manufacturers.
This bill will not be USICA, though, and it won't be ``Endless Frontier,'' which was the name of the bill when it was initially introduced, and it sounds like a far cry from the COMPETES Act, which was the House's partisan response; rather, from all reports, it focuses on the core issue of reshoring American semiconductor manufacturing here in the United States.
With COVID-19, we became aware of a lot of supply chain vulnerabilities that I think we just, frankly, were not aware of. It is one thing to be aware of a supply chain for things like toys or consumer items, but it is another to be dependent on a supply chain--a foreign supply chain--for something as critical to our way of life and our economy and our national security as advanced semiconductors.
What Senator Warner and I initially proposed and what I hope we will be voting on this week provides market-based incentives to close the cost gap between manufacturing overseas in places like Taiwan and doing so here in the United States. According to a Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company located in Taipei, they figure it costs about 30 percent less to manufacture these high-end semiconductors in Taiwan than it does in the United States.
If we are going to get some of that manufacturing capacity back here to the United States to protect us against potential blockades, whether it comes from a military conflict or a pandemic or a natural disaster, we are going to have to find a way to provide incentives for those manufacturing, fabrication facilities to be located here in the United States. That is what we are talking about.
There is a closing window of opportunity for us to act. Secretary Raimondo, the Secretary of Commerce in the Biden administration, has made clear, as have various CEOs of semiconductor companies, that if the United States does not act soon, they will have to make a business decision to locate their manufacturing facilities in other places in the world where those incentives are already provided. But it does nothing to protect the U.S. economy or national security to have another fab or manufacturing facility located somewhere else around the world. We need them here in the United States if we are going to protect our economy and guard against those national security threats.
So if we don't make a decision soon--and I am talking about in the next couple of weeks--then we can kiss those manufacturing facilities goodbye, and places like Texas, Ohio, Arizona, and other States around the country that might benefit from that construction and the high-
paying jobs that go along with them will see them taken to Europe or somewhere else.
Well, even though the Senator from West Virginia said he would not support the reckless tax-and-spending portion of the reconciliation bill, it is possible our colleagues will move forward with a slimmed-
down version of an already-slimmed-down reconciliation bill that would require the Federal Government to set a price for drugs covered by Medicare--a move which I believe will stifle innovation. Price fixing always results in scarcity, meaning consumers--particularly seniors--
will have less access to choice. It would also extend ObamaCare subsidies for insurance companies and prop up the struggling healthcare marketplace.
It is clear that I oppose those provisions and the perennial effort to legislate on a partisan basis, but the truth is, if the Democrats have 50 votes plus the Vice President, they can pass it notwithstanding Republican opposition. We all understand that. But given the fact that these horrific tax increases are off the table as a result of the announcement from the senior Senator from West Virginia, I believe we are in a posture where we can go forward with the chips funding and other related provisions, and I hope we will be able to take action on that in the coming days.
SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 168, No. 118
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
Alerts Sign-up