U.S. Senate tries again for computer chip bill to compete with China

• The Senate is scheduled to vote on a scaled-down version of legislation to offer more than $50 billion in subsidies for the computer chip sector.
• The bill would provide tax benefits to firms building plants in the country and $52 billion to revive the U.S. semiconductor industry.

Reuters, July 19, Washington The U.S. Senate was scheduled to start voting on a scaled-down version of legislation to offer more than $50 billion in subsidies for the computer chip sector on Tuesday, more than a year after enacting its initial version of a law increasing semiconductor rivalry with China.

Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate, declared that the first procedural vote would occur on Tuesday and referred to American semiconductor production as both a source of employment and a subject of national security.

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The plan is to pass the package early next week, according to Senate aides. Following the bill’s adoption by the House of Representatives, President Joe Biden would sign it into law in the White House.

According to Senate aides, the bill would provide tax benefits to firms building plants in the country and $52 billion to revive the U.S. semiconductor industry.

In his opening remarks to the Senate on Monday, Schumer said, “The message is not subtle: If firms do not think it is profitable to build chips here in America, they are going to move somewhere else.”

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Last Monday, administration representatives briefed lawmakers to advocate passage.

One of the first significant pieces of legislation voted after Democrats regained their tenuous control of the chamber was a bipartisan $250 billion plan that increased expenditure on technology research and development.

The Democratic-controlled House, which earlier this year enacted its own plan with essentially no Republican backing, did not, however, take up the proposed legislation. In addition to billions of dollars for other supply chains and the Global Climate Change Initiative, which Republicans oppose, the plan also included provisions to support chipmakers.

Recently, lawmakers started working more urgently on the streamlined legislation focusing on semiconductors after being urged to act by the administration.