[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 8306 Introduced in House (IH)]
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119th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 8306
To require the Secretary of Commerce in coordination with the Director
of National Intelligence to implement a process for establishing a
rolling annual standard for the sale of certain integrated circuits to
certain countries.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
April 15, 2026
Mr. Moolenaar introduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence, for a period to be subsequently determined
by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as
fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To require the Secretary of Commerce in coordination with the Director
of National Intelligence to implement a process for establishing a
rolling annual standard for the sale of certain integrated circuits to
certain countries.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Semiconductor Controls Adjusted to
Limit Exports Act'' or the ``SCALE Act''.
SEC. 2. STATEMENT OF POLICY.
It is the policy of the United States to--
(1) lead in global diffusion of artificial intelligence
(AI) hardware and software;
(2) shape international markets so that foreign adversaries
remain reliant on United States and allied supply chains for AI
hardware and software;
(3) pursue export promotion and export control agendas that
enable the diffusion of United States AI hardware and software
and enduring United States leadership in advanced artificial
intelligence;
(4) ensure that the United States and its allies
consistently apply export restrictions to ensure national
security objectives and prevent backfill amongst allied and
partner nations;
(5) limit the ability of adversaries to indigenize their
own AI hardware production efforts, such limitation to include
by crowding out their domestic markets with United States AI
hardware;
(6) provide business stability in export controls through a
systematic and repeatable process that annually assesses that
indigenous capability of an entity of concern to produce AI
hardware and set export control thresholds to an entity of
concern based on that process; and
(7) prevent any foreign adversary from accumulating,
through any combination of indigenous production, import, or
third-party access, a quantity of AI hardware that approaches
parity with the aggregate AI hardware capacity of the United
States.
SEC. 3. EXPORT PROMOTION AND CONTROL POLICY.
(a) Performance Metrics.--
(1) Establishment.--Not later than 180 days after the date
of enactment of this Act, the Secretary and the Director, in
coordination with other departments and agencies as necessary,
shall establish and publicly release objective performance
metrics that measure the state of AI hardware in entities of
concern. The Secretary shall submit a classified annex to the
appropriate congressional committees containing any information
that the Secretary determines cannot be publicly released.
(2) Objectives.--The metrics shall assess--
(A) the capability of individual AI hardware items
indigenously produced by each entity of concern;
(B) the aggregate capability of all entities of
concern to indigenously produce AI hardware items
relative to the total demand for AI hardware of all
entities of concern who purchase AI hardware; and
(C) the aggregate estimated amount of AI hardware
located within all countries of concern or owned or
controlled by an entity of concern.
(3) Inclusion of specific metrics.--Such metrics shall
include, but are not limited to, individual chip capabilities,
or where applicable aggregated, in the following categories:
(A) Total processing power.
(B) Interconnect bandwidth.
(C) Memory capacity bandwidth.
(b) Assessment and Report.--
(1) In general.--Not later than 90 days after each update
to the metrics established under subsection (a), the Secretary
and the Director, in coordination with other departments and
agencies as such Secretary and Director determine necessary,
shall submit a report to the appropriate congressional
committees assessing the quantity and quality of AI hardware
produced in each country of concern using such metrics.
(2) Contents.--The assessment required under paragraph (1)
shall include--
(A) for each metric, the aggregate estimated amount
of AI hardware, broken down by quarter, installed in
each country of concern, delineated by AI hardware
produced by AI hardware designers that are an entity of
concern and AI hardware produced outside of a country
of concern and imported into a country of concern;
(B) for each metric, the aggregate estimated amount
of AI hardware installed outside of a country of
concern and owned or controlled by any entity of
concern;
(C) for each metric, the aggregate estimated amount
of AI hardware--
(i) legally available to an entity of
concern through remote access;
(ii) installed outside of a country of
concern; and
(iii) not owned or controlled by an entity
of concern;
(D) a breakdown of subparagraph (B) in terms of the
country of origin of the AI hardware designer (with
respect to this subparagraph, the country of origin of
a unit of AI hardware shall be considered to be the
country in which the designer of that unit of AI
hardware is domiciled);
(E) for each metric, the combined total of the
hardware identified in subparagraphs (A), (B), and (C),
expressed as a percentage of the aggregate amount of AI
hardware physically present in and intended for use
within the United States;
(F) a breakdown by country of origin of the
aggregate amount of AI hardware physically present in
and intended for use within the United States. For this
purpose, the country of origin of a unit of AI hardware
shall be considered to be the country in which the
designer of that unit of AI hardware is domiciled; and
(G) a technical assessment of the capability of the
most advanced AI hardware designed by an entity of
concern as compared to the state-of-the-art for that
hardware.
(c) AI Export Control Threshold.--The Secretary shall adopt an
export control policy for AI hardware, including such a policy for
remote access of such hardware, to any entity of concern in accordance
with the following:
(1) Not later than 365 days after the date of enactment of
this Act, and not less than annually thereafter, use the
findings from the assessment in subsection (b), to set an upper
limit for the export of AI hardware to an entity of concern
expressed in terms of the metrics developed in subsection (a)
as follows:
(A) The upper limit shall be implemented as a
policy of denial for license applications to export,
reexport, transfer (in-country), or provide remote
access to AI hardware.
(B) The upper limit for any individual item of AI
hardware shall be set at a level not to exceed 110
percent of the performance, as measured by the metrics
developed under subsection (a), of the most capable AI
hardware item that meets the indigenous production
threshold established under subparagraph (C).
(C) An individual item of AI hardware produced by
an entity of concern shall be considered in
establishing the upper limit under subparagraph (B)
only if such item is manufactured in sustained serial
production at a volume sufficient to fulfill not less
than 25 percent of the estimated annual aggregate
demand for AI hardware among all entities of concern,
as assessed by the Secretary using the most recent
assessment under subsection (b). AI hardware produced
solely in experimental, prototype, or limited
demonstration quantities shall not be considered for
purposes of establishing the upper limit.
(D) If, at the time of any assessment under
subsection (b), no individual item of AI hardware
produced by an entity of concern meets the production
threshold established under subparagraph (C), then
applications for the export of or provision of remote
access to AI hardware to any entity of concern shall be
reviewed under a policy of denial.
(E) In no case shall the upper limit established
under this paragraph be lower than the upper limit in
effect during the preceding assessment period, unless
the Secretary provides a written determination to the
appropriate congressional committees that a reduction
is necessary to address a specific and identified
national security threat.
(2) For each metric established under subsection (a), the
Secretary shall require a license for any export, reexport,
transfer (in-country), or provide remote access to, AI hardware
to any entity of concern, and shall review licenses under a
presumption of denial if the approval of such license would
cause the aggregate estimated amount of adversary AI hardware
to exceed, in the aggregate, 5 percent of the aggregate
estimated amount of AI hardware physically present in and
intended for use within the United States.
(d) Authority To Update Metrics.--On and after the date that is 24
months after the date on which the first assessment under subsection
(b) is submitted, the Secretary may add, modify, or remove the metrics
established under subsection (a), subject to the following:
(1) The Secretary shall provide written notice to the
appropriate congressional committees not less than 90 days
before any such addition, modification, or removal takes
effect, including a detailed justification for each proposed
change and an assessment of how such change would affect the
export control thresholds established under subsection (d).
(2) No modification or removal of a metric under this
subsection shall take effect if, within the 90-day notice
period under paragraph (1), either the Committee on Foreign
Affairs of the House of Representatives or the Committee on
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate submits to
the Secretary a written objection stating that the proposed
change would undermine the purposes of this Act.
(e) Conditions for License Review on Other Than a Presumption of
Denial Basis.--Any license application to export AI hardware to any
entity of concern reviewed under the upper limit established under
subsection (d)(1) on other than a presumption of denial basis shall
include certification by the applicant that--
(1) the license will not result in any delay in fulfilling
existing or new orders from customers in the United States for
end use in the United States for any advanced-node integrated
circuits produced by the applicant, taking into account normal
lead times, and that global foundry capacity that would
otherwise be used to produce similar or more advanced
integrated circuits for end users in the United States will not
be diverted to produce items authorized by the license;
(2) for the AI hardware described in the license
application, the aggregate total processing performance of such
hardware exported to any entity of concern does not exceed 50
percent of the aggregate total processing performance of the
same hardware shipped to customers in the United States for end
use in the United States;
(3) the items are not destined for military end use,
military-intelligence end use, or weapons of mass destruction
end use, and that the ultimate consignee will employ know-your-
customer procedures to screen and prevent unauthorized remote
access by prohibited parties;
(4) prior to export, every shipment of AI hardware
described in the license application will be reviewed by a
qualified independent third-party testing laboratory
headquartered in the United States, not under the control of
any entity of concern, and having no financial interest in any
party to the transaction, to confirm that the technical
capabilities of the items are consistent with the
representations in the license application; and
(5) if the ultimate consignee or end user provides
infrastructure-as-a-service, the consignee or end user will not
transfer model weights trained on the exported AI hardware to
any end user not disclosed in the license application, and will
not provide any prohibited party with remote access to any
model trained on such hardware.
SEC. 4. RULES OF CONSTRUCTION.
Nothing in this Act may be construed to direct the Secretary to--
(1) decontrol or reduce export control thresholds based on
assessment findings; or
(2) approve licenses for sales of AI hardware or software.
SEC. 5. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) AI hardware.--The term ``AI hardware'' means--
(A) any integrated circuit, computer, electronic
assembly, or other item classified under Export Control
Classification Numbers 3A090, 4A090, or any related
Export Control Classification Number designated with a
``.z'' suffix under the Commerce Control List
(supplement number 1 to part 774 of title 15, Code of
Federal Regulations (or a successor regulation)); and
(B) any other item designated by the Secretary, by
regulation, as AI hardware for the purposes of this
Act.
(2) Aggregate estimated amount of ai hardware.--The term
``aggregate estimated amount of AI hardware'' means the total
quantity of AI hardware, as measured using the metrics
established by the Secretary under section 3(a).
(3) Aggregate estimated amount of adversary ai hardware.--
The term ``aggregate estimated amount of adversary AI
hardware'' means the aggregate estimated amount of AI
hardware--
(A) installed across all countries of concern; or
(B) accessible to any entity of concern, including
through remote access to AI hardware installed outside
of any country of concern.
(4) Appropriate congressional committees.--The term
``appropriate congressional committees'' means--
(A) the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House
of Representatives;
(B) the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
of the House of Representatives;
(C) the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban
Affairs of the Senate; and
(D) the Select Committee on Intelligence of the
Senate.
(5) Country of concern.--The term ``country of concern''
means--
(A) the People's Republic of China, including the
Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions;
(B) the Republic of Cuba;
(C) the Islamic Republic of Iran;
(D) the Democratic People's Republic of Korea;
(E) the Russian Federation; and
(F) any other foreign country--
(i) listed in the Country Group D:5 under
Supplement No. 1 to part 740 of the Export
Administration Regulations, as published on
January 1, 2026;
(ii) designated by the Secretary of State
as a country of concern for purposes of this
section; and
(iii) notice of such designation has been
published in the Federal Register.
(6) Director.--The term ``Director'' means the Director of
National Intelligence.
(7) Entity of concern.--The term ``entity of concern''
means any entity--
(A) organized under the laws of any country of
concern;
(B) having its principal place of business in any
country of concern;
(C) of which more than 10 percent of the ultimate
beneficial ownership is held, directly or indirectly,
by one or more persons or entities that are organized
under the laws of, have their principal place of
business in, or are nationals of any country of
concern; or
(D) that is owned or controlled by, or acts on
behalf of, the government of any country of concern.
(8) Indigenous production.--The term ``indigenous
production'', with respect to AI hardware--
(A) means AI hardware that is--
(i) physically fabricated within the
territory of the People's Republic of China;
and
(ii) designed by any entity of concern; and
(B) excludes AI hardware that is designed by any
entity of concern but fabricated outside of any country
of concern for purposes of this Act.
(9) Remote access.--The term ``remote access'' means access
on a purposeful, knowing, reckless, or negligent basis to an
item subject to the jurisdiction of the United States under
this Act by a foreign person through a network connection,
including the internet or a cloud computing service, from a
location other than where the item is physically located if the
Secretary determines that the use of the item could pose a
serious risk to the national security or foreign policy of the
United States.
(10) Secretary.--The term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary
of Commerce.
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