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Chips bill - >>> Commerce secretary expects vote on stalled chips bill 'next week,' says Biden will sign 'this summer'


Yahoo Finance

by Ben Werschkul

July 15, 2022


https://finance.yahoo.com/news/commerce-secretary-expects-vote-on-stalled-chips-bill-next-week-182546352.html


The Senate is hoping to vote soon on a long-delayed bill to boost the U.S. semiconductor industry and improve competitiveness with China amid a worldwide chip shortage.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has focused on the stalled bill for months. In a new Yahoo Finance interview on Friday, she vowed that it's going to get done this month, in spite of setbacks in recent days.

“It's going to get to the president's desk this summer,” she said Friday during an interview from her office between yet another round of outreach to lawmakers. She quickly added a second promise that “there'll be a lot of ups and downs between now and when it does.”

Congress has only a few weeks left before the August recess, and Raimondo says she expects that action on the bill will begin soon in the form "a vote next week” — a target date that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is pressing for, too.

"Time's up and it's time to take a vote," Raimondo said.

Biden officials have been arguing for months that this is must-pass legislation for the U.S. economy; a version of the bill even passed the Senate in June 2021. Raimondo and other administration officials spent both Wednesday and Thursday on Capitol hill for closed-door meetings with lawmakers to try to get the bill over the finish line.

It would be ‘really inexcusable to vote no’

A 'slimmed down' version of the bill appears set to include around $52 billion to provide new subsidies for semiconductor manufacturers such as Intel (INTC) to spur investment in the U.S. The bill is also likely to authorize another $200 billion that would go out in the form of tax credits to boost U.S. scientific and technological innovation more broadly as part of the effort to compete with China.

Intel recently postponed the groundbreaking on a key Ohio semiconductor factory because of delays with the bill. Company CEO Pat Gelsinger has even warned that production might migrate to Europe if the issue isn’t resolved soon.

Back in Washington, Raimondo recently warned that chip makers could flee the U.S. within "months" unless Congress acts. She upped the rhetorical stakes further this week, arguing in a letter she co-authored with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that alleviating the shortage is “imperative for our national security."

But the bill has stalled just short of the finish line for months. First, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested he'd stand in the way if Democrats continue to move forward on their unrelated reconciliation effort.

This week, there then appeared to be an opening for a “slimmed down” bill when McConnell noted: “There are members I have who are not overly fond of [the overall bill] but who think there's a national security aspect to the chips deficit.”

Raimondo quickly endorsed the idea to "cleave off" CHIPS Act and move on a smaller standalone bill. But even that idea has faced opposition from some Republican senators, including John Cornyn of Texas.

Friday afternoon, things got even more complicated as the news broke that the Democratic leadership was considering putting the semiconductor funding inside the reconciliation package with many things still up in the air.

In any case, Raimondo told reporters this week her she hopes there's enough “sense of urgency” to finally get it done. She went further during Friday’s conversation with Yahoo Finance, mentioning Cornyn specifically.

“He has worked on this CHIPS bill for years. He understands and cares about the national security ramifications [and it would be] really inexcusable to vote no next week because of some political jockeying or looking for leverage on an unrelated bill,” she said.

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