On the recordJuly 18, 2022
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 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.…





