WASHINGTON—After weeks of uncertainty, the Senate is set to vote Monday to advance a far-reaching $280 billion package of subsidies and research funding to shore up U.S. competitiveness in advanced technology.
The bill had all but collapsed earlier this month amid partisan bickering, then came together in a matter of days. It is expected to move ahead in the Senate in a procedural vote, setting up final passage on Tuesday or Wednesday. The bill restores many but not all the main provisions of competitiveness legislation passed over the past year by the Senate and House.
The bill “creates a comprehensive response to China’s growing technology dominance, which poses a massive threat to our national security,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.), one of the main GOP backers.
Its prospects in the House are less clear. Some Democrats and Republicans say prosperous tech companies don’t need taxpayer subsidies, with some Republicans also skeptical about taking a bill assembled mainly by Senate Democrats.
House leaders are optimistic they will be able to piece together their own bipartisan coalition to give final approval to the legislation and send it to President Biden before the August congressional recess
Once the Senate passes this urgently needed legislation, the House will swiftly send it to the president’s desk House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
The bill combines about $52 billion in subsidy funding to boost semiconductor production in the U.S., along with about $24 billion in advanced manufacturing tax credits that would also support the industry.
The package also would authorize about $200 billion in spending, mainly for federally backed scientific research over the next decade. It would fund about $1.5 billion for next-generation wireless research and establish new long-term policies for the nation’s space program.
Much of the science funding represents a compromise between earlier House and Senate science funding bills. There is even a section named for Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson
Supporters, including the Biden administration and the U.S. chip-making industry, say the legislation is needed because of the high cost of building advanced chip manufacturing facilities.
They say the investment for the U.S. to maintain its technological edge and to prevent semiconductor production from becoming too concentrated in Asia, where there are geopolitical risks of supply disruption.
Opponents—who include Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) on the left and Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Penn.) on the right—say big semiconductor companies don’t need so much help. Criticism of the tax breaks has been particularly fierce, because they were a last-minute addition to a bill that already offered large subsidies.
science funding is aimed at boosting the U.S. government’s diminished standing in research spending, by some estimates at its lowest since before the space race of the 1960s. Cutting-edge areas expected to be affected include quantum computing and artificial intelligence.
package’s phoenixlike revival in recent days came after Senate Republicans abruptly walked away from negotiations this summer. Republicans were unhappy that even as they were negotiating over the sprawling competitiveness bill, Democrats began simultaneously trying to revive a partisan package of climate spending and tax measures.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) signaled that he might be willing to accept a much-narrowed bill that included the semiconductor subsidies. That meant dropping the bulk of the bill’s spending measures, including for science.
package leaves out a proposal—opposed by some business groups—to require government review of certain U.S. outbound investments in China and other potentially unfriendly countries.
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