[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 118 (Monday, July 18, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3324-S3325]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             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

[[Page S3325]]

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.