“The CHIPS Act was passed by Congress for the purpose of reversing the decline of the domestic semiconductor industry"
Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Ted Cruz led more than a dozen of his U.S. Senate Republican colleagues this week in a letter to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo (right,) urging the administration to strike a number of liberal social policy conditions that were attached to grants for domestic chip production. Few of the requirements on the $39 billion in total funding – such as requiring applicants to develop plans around mass transit use and affordable housing – were found in the CHIPS Act, a bill enacted last year to help re-shore semi-conductor manufacturing.
Specifically, the Senators requested seven categories of provisions be stricken from the Commerce Department’s recent Notice of Funding Opportunity (“NOFO”), including:- Green New Deal mandates
- Mandates for cradle-to-grave “wraparound” services for employees
- Subsidized Housing & Transportation for employees
- Discrimination in hiring practices against non-union workers & “economically disadvantaged individuals,” and
- Government seizure of “excess” profits
- John Barrasso (Wyo.)
- Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)
- Mike Braun (R-Ind.)
- Ted Budd (R-N.C.)
- Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)
- Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.)
- Joni Ernst (R-Iowa)
- Deb Fischer (R-Neb.)
- Mike Lee (R-Utah)
- Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.)
- Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.)
- Rick Scott (R-Fla.), and
- Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.)
"Many of the grant criteria detailed in your Department’s recent Notice of Funding Opportunity (“NOFO”) will have the opposite effect of Congress’s intent with enactment of the CHIPS Act and instead make domestic chip production more expensive, less competitive, and reliant on taxpayer subsidies over private investment.
"Furthermore, your Department has included in the NOFO extraneous environmental-social governance (ESG) requirements that seek to enact progressive policies that had been previously rejected by Congress. These policies include liberal wish list items, many of which were removed from the White House’s “Build Back Better” major spending package, H.R. 5376 (P.L 117-169), because they did not have the votes to pass at even a simple majority in the Senate.
"To claim that these provisions are integral to the “national security mission” of the CHIPS Act and will “[result] in lower costs” defies reason.
"The Commerce Department should amend the NOFO by striking all application requirements that are ancillary to accomplishing Congress’s stated goals or otherwise squander taxpayer dollars on social policy objectives.
“The CHIPS Act was passed by Congress for the purpose of reversing the decline of the domestic semiconductor industry. It is apparent from the NOFO’s enumerated priorities that the Commerce Department intends to repurpose the CHIPS program and circumvent Congress. We urge the Department to reverse these superfluous and partisan provisions in the NOFO immediately[…]
“The CHIPS Act was passed by Congress for the purpose of reversing the decline of the domestic semiconductor industry. It is apparent from the NOFO’s enumerated priorities that the Commerce Department intends to repurpose the CHIPS program and circumvent Congress. We urge the Department to reverse these superfluous and partisan provisions in the NOFO immediately.”
"Furthermore, your Department has included in the NOFO extraneous environmental-social governance (ESG) requirements that seek to enact progressive policies that had been previously rejected by Congress. These policies include liberal wish list items, many of which were removed from the White House’s “Build Back Better” major spending package, H.R. 5376 (P.L 117-169), because they did not have the votes to pass at even a simple majority in the Senate.
"To claim that these provisions are integral to the “national security mission” of the CHIPS Act and will “[result] in lower costs” defies reason.
"The Commerce Department should amend the NOFO by striking all application requirements that are ancillary to accomplishing Congress’s stated goals or otherwise squander taxpayer dollars on social policy objectives.
“The CHIPS Act was passed by Congress for the purpose of reversing the decline of the domestic semiconductor industry. It is apparent from the NOFO’s enumerated priorities that the Commerce Department intends to repurpose the CHIPS program and circumvent Congress. We urge the Department to reverse these superfluous and partisan provisions in the NOFO immediately[…]
“The CHIPS Act was passed by Congress for the purpose of reversing the decline of the domestic semiconductor industry. It is apparent from the NOFO’s enumerated priorities that the Commerce Department intends to repurpose the CHIPS program and circumvent Congress. We urge the Department to reverse these superfluous and partisan provisions in the NOFO immediately.”
The full text of this letter is available HERE.
