The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“CHIPS for America Act (Executive Calendar)” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Commerce was published in the in the Senate section section on pages S512-S515 on Feb. 3.
The Department includes the Census Bureau, which is used to determine many factors about American life. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, said the Department is involved in misguided foreign trade policies and is home to many unneeded programs.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
CHIPS for America Act
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, in the summer of 2020, the senior Senator from Virginia, Senator Warner, and I introduced the CHIPS for America Act to reshore semiconductor manufacturing here in the United States.
I didn't know much about semiconductors when we got started, but I have learned a lot, and what I have learned is that this is an essential commodity that we have over time offshored to places like Asia that we need to reshore or bring back to America for our economy and for national security.
Currently, 90 percent of the semiconductors in the world are manufactured in Asia. Sixty-three percent of the semiconductors in the world come from one place: Taiwan. If COVID has taught us one thing, it has taught us how vulnerable our supply chains can be. And the truth is, semiconductors have become so critical to our way of life, to our economy, and to our national security, to everything we do, that if that supply were blocked for some reason--either as a result of another pandemic or a natural disaster or, Heaven forbid, a military conflict--
it would be devastating to the United States and our economy and our national security.
That is why, when our bill was introduced as an amendment to the Defense authorization bill, it passed 96 to 4. Clearly, we had strong, bipartisan support here in the Senate. It took less than 7 months from the time we introduced the bill until it became law, and then 6 months later, the Senate passed the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, with
$52 billion in funding for the CHIPS Program.
Had this legislation been introduced years ago, before the pandemic, I don't think it would have received either such quick action or such broad bipartisan support. That is not because this type of investment wasn't needed. There is clear data that showed a concerning trend in U.S. chip manufacturing.
We saw big investments made by other countries in their own capabilities and a business model primarily by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which I visited along with colleagues in Taipei just a few months ago, where their business model is to manufacture chips made and designed--I should say designed by companies that need those semiconductors. But rather than build their own manufacturing capability, their own foundry, they outsourced that to Taiwan Semiconductor. So Taiwan and particularly Taiwan Semiconductor have become the focal point for the production of semiconductors around the world.
Well, there was general agreement that something should be done before COVID-19, but it certainly wasn't at the top of everyone's priority list. But, as I said, when the pandemic hit, the vulnerability of our supply chains for everything from PPE--personal protective equipment--to semiconductors became apparent.
Well, how has that affected everyday Texans, folks from Nevada or Colorado? Well, we found out that an absence or a lack of semiconductors meant empty car lots. You couldn't buy a new car. You couldn't get a computer, perhaps for your child to be able to study virtually during a quarantine period or during a period of virtual learning at schools across the country.
We saw higher prices adding to the problem with inflation. Suddenly, those concerning data points turned into real-world problems. Consumers who never even dreamed or thought about a semiconductor before found themselves impacted by this global shortage. The new car they had been saving up for wasn't available. The Christmas gift they planned to order for their children was out of stock.
While the lack of consumer products is a big problem, it pales in comparison to the security risk created by the chip shortage. Simply put, semiconductors are vital to our critical infrastructure. Our grid keeps on the lights and makes it possible to heat our buildings during the cold of winter. They run our cell towers that enable us to talk on our cell phones or download data and do searches on the web. They are critical to our energy grid, our water treatment plants, and our agricultural sector. Semiconductor chips make it all possible.
As I said, our national defense also depends on semiconductors. When we send our troops on any mission by air, sea, land, or cyber space, they need the best equipment available, and usually what that means is the most advanced technology available. Advanced fighters, quantum computing, missile defense--all rely on semiconductors.
I asked my staff to research back when Israel was using the Iron Dome missile defense system to knock rockets out of the sky that were destined to hit population centers in Israel. I said: Find out for me how many semiconductors are in each one of those missile defense interceptors. They came back with a figure of 750 chips in each one of those missile defense interceptors.
So it is not hard to imagine we would be in big trouble if a lack of supply crippled any of these functions, and unfortunately, it is a real possibility. Over the years, domestic chip production has steadily dropped as other countries have upped their manufacturing capabilities. As I said, 90 percent of that manufacturing is now in Asia.
We had the idea--and it is not a crazy idea--that if somebody could make things cheaper overseas, then that is the most efficient way for that product to be made, but we didn't calculate these supply chain problems which COVID-19 exposed.
But we know, as I said, that if there were another pandemic or let's say a natural disaster or a military conflict, the People's Republic of China has made no secret about its plan to unify with Taiwan. President Xi has explicitly said invasion of Taiwan will happen, and he has asked that his military be ready by the year 2027. But we don't actually know what his timetable may be, and if China follows through on its threats to invade Taiwan and interrupts that supply chain of critical semiconductors, it would be dramatically bad for the United States and the world. Our national security and critical infrastructure could be hobbled by a single decision made by the President of the People's Republic of China.
I was reminded of Jimmy Carter's 1980 speech at the State of the Union when he spoke about instability in the Persian Gulf and Soviet threats to the movement of Middle East oil through the Strait of Hormuz. President Carter said at the time--when we were so dependent on imported oil from the Middle East--he said any attempt to gain control of the Persian Gulf and to block the Strait of Hormuz would be
``regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America.''
You could say the same about a blockade that prevented us from getting semiconductors from Asia. Just as the Soviets could have blocked the Strait of Hormuz and choked off the global supply, the People's Republic of China could seize Taiwan's supply of chips and its manufacturing facilities and hold the rest of the world at risk. The United States and our allies would be left fighting for the crumbs, what was left over.
Our country isn't the only one, fortunately, that spotted this blinking red light. Other countries are pouring tens of billions of dollars into new semiconductor foundries. The European Union is now investing up to $35 billion. South Korea is investing $65 billion. The People's Republic of China is reportedly investing $150 billion in semiconductor manufacturing.
The United States cannot be left behind, and we can't drag our feet. Unlike PPE--personal protective equipment--or hand sanitizer shortages, this one cannot be solved quickly. Companies that make other technologies can't just adjust to the lack of semiconductors. In order to build a single chip, you need very expensive, highly advanced equipment, you need very skilled workers, and you need a lot of time. It can take literally months to build a single chip, and that is assuming you have the facilities and the expertise to do so.
So it is not hyperbole to say that there are life-or-death consequences to a reliable semiconductor supply chain, which is why this has been such a high-priority item on a bipartisan basis here in the Senate.
The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act included $52 billion to fund this program and ensure that, once again, we could maintain a strong supply of advanced semiconductors. That legislation, which included an emergency appropriation, passed by a vote of 68 to 32, which is pretty impressive these days with the polarization that we are all dealing with--a strong, bipartisan vote.
Unfortunately, the momentum that bill had ended when it got to the House of Representatives. The Speaker of the House had other priorities, and months and months went by. Our House colleagues said they wanted to pass their own version of this legislation, and they have every right to do so, but time is not on our side, and they need to act quickly. Every day that goes by is a day that China inches ahead of the United States and that we fall further behind.
We need to get this funding out the door and to begin that construction of these fabs, which take a considerable amount of time to build, underway as soon as we can.
In a year's time, Senator Warner and I introduced the CHIPS Act, it became law, and the Senate funded the program we created. We are not ordinarily known for our speed, and the quick timeline is indicative of how urgent this problem really is.
I don't have any excuse for the House's failure to address this issue for 7 months, but now it sounds like they are beginning to think about addressing it.
Well, I can understand why the process would take so long if the House was actually engaged in a bipartisan negotiation, but, unfortunately, it looks like they are going to pass a partisan bill with no Republican support because they were not included in the discussions. The Democratic committee chairmen refused to consult with the Republican ranking members, and it looks like they are going to produce a partisan bill.
Well, that bill I do not believe would pass the U.S. Senate. The House bill contains $8 billion for an unaccountable U.N. climate slush fund, which has provided more than $100 million for the People's Republic of China.
What we are talking about--what we should be talking about--is countering threats from China, not helping China.
The partisan bill from the House has also added provisions related to immigration, from creating new types of visas to removing green card caps. Immigration is an important issue. We ought to be talking about it. We ought to be doing something about it, but not on a partisan basis.
These changes should not be tacked on to this legislation at the last hour. They need to be debated and marked up by the appropriate committees and given the sort of careful consideration that they deserve.
The House bill also includes additional handouts to favorite political constituencies, from massive slush funds to burdensome new labor requirements. Organized labor would be the big winner in the House bill, but not rank-and-file Americans.
It is not just what is in this bill that is a problem. I am talking about the House bill, now. It is what was left out. The bill's trade title is completely inadequate. It extends and expands trade adjustment assistance, but it completely excludes trade promotion authority. We know that trade promotion authority is critical to negotiating strong trade agreements without lengthy delays.
So I regret and I am very disappointed that the House has wasted available time, particularly when this vulnerability to the semiconductor supply chain is so grave and so urgent.
We have a responsibility to secure our most critical supply chains while creating thousands of high-paying American jobs and boosting our global competitiveness. So I hope that once the House does pass a bill that we quickly form a formal conference committee in order to make the final product look a whole lot like the Senate bill that we passed with strong bipartisan majorities.
Let me just comment in closing that I am a big fan of the Wall Street Journal. I read it or, at least, parts of it every day. But I was concerned that a treatment of this legislation in the Wall Street Journal editorial yesterday--actually, it was this morning--either was unclear or provided misinformation about the importance of these semiconductors.
The title of the editorial was ``The Be More Like China Act.'' And suffice it to say, they were not fans of either the House or the Senate bill.
But they made this statement. They said: ``[T]he Pentagon is already providing incentives to make advanced chips in the United States, and
[Taiwan Semiconductor] is building a $12 billion plant in Arizona.''
To the second issue, the reason why Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is building a fab in Arizona is in the expectation that the Senate will pass this $52 billion incentive program, and through the Department of Commerce, grants will be made which will level the playing field. When it comes to the cost of building these fabs in the United States, it costs roughly 30 percent more to build a manufacturing facility, a fab, in the United States than it does in Asia, which is the reason why they are mainly there.
But I think what the Wall Street Journal was talking about was something very different than what we are trying to do here with reshoring manufacturing of semiconductors.
The Wall Street Journal, I believe, is talking about the Department of Defense's zero-trust semiconductor purchasing model. In other words, we needed a trusted foundry to build semiconductors for our most important weapon systems and aircraft, like the F-35, and so this is not a manufacturing facility that will supply the semiconductors that are needed by our growing economy and for national security. This is a very narrow, targeted program at the Department of Defense, and, like I said, the Department of Defense's secure foundry or trusted supplier program is not a substitute for what we are trying to do here.
Finally, let me say that there is broad bipartisan agreement about how important it is that we get this CHIPS Act passed.
Secretary Raimondo, the Secretary of Commerce, whom I have come to know and come to work with and respect, said to CNBC yesterday: ``The U.S. is dangerously dependent on Taiwan's semiconductor manufacturing, which is in a fragile situation, which I have tried to describe.''
I agree with Secretary Raimondo. This is something that the President wants done. This is something the Senate has spoken to and passed on a broad bipartisan basis, and this is something that we need to do without further delay.
So I hope the House will pass the bill if for no other reason than to give us a bill that we can conference the Senate bill with. But in the end, the Senate bill needs to be the template for what is ultimately done by the conference committee and what is ultimately passed by the U.S. Congress.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. BENNET. Madam President, first I would like to congratulate the senior Senator from Texas for his leadership on this incredibly important issue with Senator Warner, the senior Senator from Virginia.
It really is important that we get this passed. Our national security depends on it. I think the American economy depends on it.
The Senator mentioned that there was a time in our country's history not long ago--I am going to use my words, not his, but I will paraphrase it--where I think we thought that making things as cheaply as possible was the same thing as making things as efficiently as possible. And I would argue that we privileged the people in our economy who wanted to make stuff as cheaply as possible in China when there are a lot of really other important values at work, including our national security, the supply chains that we rely on, making sure that communities in our country have jobs and wages being created.
I think we have an incredible opportunity as a nation to come together and build an economy that, when it grows, grows for everybody once again. And in my mind, that is what this bill represents.
So I just want to say to the Senator from Texas how grateful I am for his leadership, and I hope that it won't be long before we pass it.
Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 2497
Madam President, 80 years ago this month, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, 2 months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and it led to some of the most disgraceful chapters in our Nation's history--the forced dispossession, relocation, and concentration of over 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.
Two-thirds of them were citizens of this country, forced out of their homes and into internment camps by their own government. They were our neighbors, and they were parents and shopkeepers and students, doctors and factory workers. They were Americans in every sense of the word.
But racist fear forced them into these camps--crowded, squalid, and at war with everything that we stand for as a nation. One of those camps was Amache in Colorado, where nearly 10,000 Japanese Americans were detained against their will.
This is a photo of that camp.
I will mention, just because I looked it up--I figured this might be true, because we have Senators from Nevada and Texas here--that there were five such places in Texas, as well--internment camps.
But this is one that was in southeastern Colorado, and these children are among the first arrivals at Amache, and they were forced to build the camp where their own families were interned for the duration of the war.
I can't tell exactly the ages of the children in this photo, but I would be surprised if the pages on this floor are any older than them. And I would say to the President, in front of the pages, to ask them to imagine a time when our country interned people the age of the people who are pages on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
I have had the opportunity to visit Amache a few years ago with John Hopper, who is a high school teacher, a principal, out there near the camp, who along with his students, created the Amache Preservation Society.
There wasn't anybody else to do it. It was just a high school teacher and his students. They recognized how much this site meant to Colorado, how much this site meant to the country. And, acting completely on their own, they worked year after year after year to restore the site so that the next generation of Coloradans and Americans--the young people sitting on this floor today--would have the opportunity to learn about what happened here.
If it were up to me, every student in Colorado and throughout the American West and, for that matter, in our entire country would come to this site and learn about the Americans of Amache--the men and women who held on to hope year after year, who supported one another, who forged a community behind the barbed wires of this site, who never gave up on the United States of America, even as it was interning them on their own soil.
And if they did go to Amache, they could learn about one of my heroes, Colorado's former Governor Ralph Carr, who spoke out against what was happening at a time when most politicians in the West and in this country--going all the way up to our President, Franklin Roosevelt--were either not speaking out or allowing this to happen.
At that time, many Western Governors opposed internment camps, not just because they were unjust but--I am sorry. At that time, many Western Governors were comfortable locking up their fellow citizens so long as they were locked up in someone else's State because there was an anti-Japanese American prejudice in the land.
Some Coloradans in nearby communities gave way to shameful fear of their fellow citizens and objected to their presence. To say the least, they objected to their presence.
Speaking to an angry crowd one day on the Eastern Plains--I say to my colleague from Texas that this is where my colleague Senator Cory Gardner was from, this part of the State of Colorado--Governor Carr said: ``I am talking to . . . all American people whether their status be white, brown or black . . . when I say that if a majority may deprive a minority of its freedom, contrary to the terms of the Constitution today, then you as a minority may be subjected to the same ill-will of the majority tomorrow.''
He went on: ``The Japanese are protected by the same Constitution that protects us. An American citizen of Japanese descent has the same rights as any other citizen. . . . If you harm them, you must first harm me.''
He went on to lose his next election. I think it was to the U.S. Senate. And I shudder to think what would have happened if people like Governor Carr hadn't been there to stand for our highest ideals as a country, or if survivors and their descendants and community leaders, many of whom have close connections to Colorado to this day or who live in Colorado to this day, hadn't worked for decades to preserve the site and the memory of what happened there.
Thanks to their work, we now have the opportunity to give Amache the recognition and resources it deserves. That is why I introduced this bill, along with my colleague Senator Hickenlooper, to make Amache part of the National Park System. This would ensure Amache has the legal status and funding to preserve the site and the memory of what happened there for years to come.
In the House, Congressmen Ken Buck and Joe Neguse introduced the bill. Not everybody here would know this, but I know Congressman Buck would know this. He and I ran against each other in 2009 and 2010. That was a tough, tough, tough election, and I barely--barely--won. I barely won. But I am proud to serve with Congressman Buck in the House and Congressman Neguse in the House who also have come together, just like me and Senator Hickenlooper, to support this bill.
This site is in Ken Buck's district in Prowers County. Ken won 74 percent of the vote there in 2020. By the way, I think I won 33 percent in 2016, so Ken is outpacing me there. We don't agree on a lot, but we agree 100 percent that this matters to our State and the legacy we want to pass on to the next generation.
I have a list of 65 groups that support this bill: the Asian Chamber of Commerce, the Colorado Council of Churches, the Colorado Municipal League. If that weren't enough, the bill also has the support of the chairman and the ranking member of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee.
But today, there is 1 Senator out of 99--and it is not the senior Senator from Texas--who is objecting to this bill.
This bill passed the House of Representatives with all but two votes. We have 99 Senators on one side who support this and 1 objecting. I have absolutely no idea why that one Senator is objecting, and I hope that it is just a misunderstanding of some kind. We fight for a lot of things on this floor, but there is a bipartisan tradition going back to Teddy Roosevelt of both parties coming together to protect places that matter to our heritage as a nation.
Amache matters to Colorado, and it matters to America. This is about whether we are going to ignore the worst parts of our history or lift them up and give future generations the opportunity to learn from them so that we can move this country closer to our highest ideals.
So I hope that the Senator who is objecting to this bipartisan bill, with massive support in both the House and Senate, that is of critical importance to the State of Colorado, that doesn't touch or concern any other State in the Union, except to the extent that people from those States of the Union might someday like to come here and learn an important episode in our country's history--I feel strongly about this, in part, because my own mom and her family were dislocated by the same war. They were living on the other side of the world in Poland. The entire family was killed except for an aunt and my grandparents and my mom. And she got here when she was 11 years old, which is probably the same age as these young children here who were picked up from their homes all across the Western United States and brought to a place that they never had known before. It seems to me, the least we could do, with this massive bipartisan support, is to pass this bill.
So as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 255, H.R. 2497; further, that the committee-reported amendment be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection?
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, reserving the right to object, due to the winter storms that are shutting down airports around the country, Senator Lee, the Senator from Utah, who objects to this unanimous consent request is not here, and I had the bad luck to be here when he communicated to me his desire that I make an objection on his behalf.
I would say to my friend from Colorado, I am a noncombatant on this issue. I didn't hold his bill. But I know Senator Lee does have an amendment, I believe, he wants to offer, and certainly he wants to be here to participate in the discussion and vote on the bill. So on his behalf, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I thank the senior Senator from Texas who, in fact, is a noncombatant in this effort. And I am sorry that he has had the misfortune of having to come out here and object.
I will say that Colorado and Utah are right next to each other, and I faced the same travel issues that the Senator from Utah faces, I guess. I hope he gets where he is trying to go, but I stayed here this evening not because I objected to this but because I thought it was so incredibly important for us to get this work done.
And I want the record to reflect that I actually didn't name the Senator who objected, but the Senator from Texas did.
My fervent hope is that we can work this out because, really importantly, we are having the anniversary of Franklin Roosevelt's decision to inter these young people this month. And if we don't get this back to the House of Representatives, we may miss that anniversary, and people in Colorado would miss the chance to be able to demonstrate that they are carrying this really important legacy forward.
When I think about my mom's experience and the experiences here and the country that these young men and women are growing up in who are with us today, it just makes me think even more about how important all of this is. And, Madam President, I can't think of anybody I would rather have this discussion with than with you presiding in the Chair.
With that, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Warnock). Without objection, it is so ordered.
