John Cornyn: “the business before the Senate is a critical undertaking to shore up our vulnerability to imported microcircuits…”

“the business before the Senate is a critical undertaking to shore up our vulnerability to imported microcircuits, otherwise known as semiconductors. You might wonder why this is so important if you haven't been following the debate over the last couple of years. While this legislation has taken many names, it began as the CHIPS for America Act in June of 2020, which established a new program to incentivize manufacturers of these tiny microcircuits, known as semiconductors, to set up shop here in the United States. We have tried to fund the program at different times through the Endless Frontier Act; the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, sometimes called USICA; the America COMPETES Act; the Make It in America Act. But no matter what the title is or whatever you call it, the purpose is to eliminate this unacceptable risk that somehow--due to pandemic, due to military conflict, due to natural disaster--our access to the most advanced semiconductors on the planet would be cut off, with devastating consequences to the U.S. economy and our national security. I know some people wonder, Why should the Federal taxpayer provide financial incentives to semiconductor manufacturing? And that is a perfectly good question.…”