A few months later, the U.S. Senate makes another try with a computer chip statute in an effort to rival China
More than a year after passing its initial version of a law escalating semiconductor competition with China, the U.S. Senate was set to begin voting on a scaled-down version of legislation to award more than $50 billion in subsidies for the computer chip business on Tuesday.
The first procedural vote will take place on Tuesday, according to Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate. He also mentioned that American semiconductor manufacture is a source of employment and a matter of national security.
According to Senate aides, the objective is to pass the package early next week. After the House of Representatives approved the measure, President Joe Biden would sign it into law at the White House.
Senate aides claim that the legislation would offer tax breaks to companies setting up operations in the nation and $52 billion to resurrect the U.S. semiconductor industry.
“The message is not subtle: If corporations do not think it is lucrative to produce chips here in America, they will relocate elsewhere,” Schumer warned in his opening statement to the Senate on Monday. Representatives of the administration briefed lawmakers on Monday to urge approval.
Bipartisan $250 billion plan to expand spending on technology research and development was one of the first big pieces of legislation passed after Democrats reclaimed their precarious control of the House.
However, the planned measure was not taken up by the Democratic-controlled House, which earlier this year passed its own proposal with almost no Republican support. The package contained incentives to aid chipmakers in addition to billions of dollars for other supply chains and the Global Climate Change Initiative, which Republicans oppose.
After being pressed to act by the administration, lawmakers recently began working more urgently on the simplified legislation that focuses on semiconductors.