Federal Updates

Jeffry D. Harris
Bricker & Eckler LLP

CHIPS Act’s subsidies for semi-conductor manufacturing steps into the batting circle, now with a bigger bat.  Is it the next batter-up in Congress?  With Sen. Manchin’s (D – West Va.) death blow dealt to the Biden Administration’s climate change legislation in the U.S. Senate, the blockade of the pending CHIPS Act imposed by the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R – Kentucky) appears to have been removed.  On Tuesday, July 19, the Senate held a test vote (64-34) to move forward with the semi-conductor manufacturing subsidy measure that had stalled previously in Congress, and now with a bigger impact.

Specifically, Senator Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D – New York) added to the CHIPS Act’s initial $52B in manufacturing subsidies another $250B to support for R&D of semi-conductor technology, with a targeting of those federal funds to industrial regions that were particularly hard hit by offshoring of the country’s manufacturing industries since the 1970s.  (Read: Ohio)

Reporting indicates the new and improved CHIPS Act could pass the Senate yet this week, with the House looking to take up the measure for a vote as early as next week (the week of July 25).  The well-publicized (and intricately followed) Intel semi-conductor fab assembly site announcement in Central Ohio has been directly keyed to the successful passage of the CHIPS Act, in whatever form emerges from Congress.