In President Biden’s first year in office, the Biden-Harris administration implemented an industrial strategy to revitalize domestic manufacturing, create good-paying American jobs, strengthen American supply chains, and accelerate the industry of the future. These policies have spurred a historic recovery in manufacturing, adding 642,000 manufacturing jobs by 2021. Companies are reinvesting in America, bringing home good-paying manufacturing jobs. Construction of new production facilities increased by 116 percent compared to last year.
Today, President Biden will sign into law the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which will build on this progress, making historic investments that will empower American workers, communities and companies to win the race for the 21st century. It will strengthen American manufacturing, supply chains, and national security, and invest in research and development, science and technology, and the workforce of the future to keep the United States a leader in tomorrow’s industries, including nanotechnology, clean energy, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence. The Chips and Science Act makes smart investments so Americans can compete and win the future.
Spurred by the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, companies this week announced nearly $50 billion in additional investment in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing, bringing total business investment to nearly $150 billion since President Biden took office:
The CHIPS and Science Act will boost semiconductor research, development and manufacturing in America, ensuring American leadership in the technology that underpins everything from cars to home appliances to defense systems. America invented the semiconductor, but today it produces about 10 percent of the world’s supply — and none of the most advanced chips. Instead, we rely on East Asia for 75 percent of the world’s production. The CHIPS and Science Act will enable hundreds of billions more in private sector semiconductor investment across the country, including manufacturing essential to national defense and critical sectors.
The Act will also ensure that the United States maintains and advances its scientific and technological advantage. In the mid-1960s, at the height of the Moon Race, the federal government invested 2 percent of GDP in research and development. By 2020, that number had dropped to less than 1 percent. Economic growth and prosperity over the past 40 years has concentrated in a few regions on the coast, leaving too many communities behind. CHIPS and the Science Act will ensure that the future is created ALL across America and open opportunities in science and technology to those historically left out.
The Biden-Harris administration has already taken steps to ensure expeditious, accountable implementation of CHIPS and Science Act funding:
The bill requires recipients to demonstrate significant worker and community investment, including opportunities for small businesses and disadvantaged communities, ensuring that semiconductor incentives support equitable economic growth and development.
These funds also come with strong safeguards, ensuring that the recipients do not build certain facilities in China and other countries of interest, and preventing companies from using taxpayer funds for share buybacks and dividends to shareholders. It will also support good-paying union construction jobs by requiring Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rates for facilities built with CHIPS funds.
The CHIPS and Science Act will establish a directorate for technology, innovation, and partnerships at the National Science Foundation (NSF) that will focus on fields such as semiconductors and advanced computing, advanced communications technology, advanced energy technologies, quantum information technologies, and biotechnology. It will strengthen the commercialization of research and technology, ensuring that what is invented in America is made in America. The Act will also reauthorize and expand fundamental research inspired by the use of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and the National Institute of Standards and Technology to maintain US leadership in science and engineering as a driver of American innovation.
These hubs will create jobs, spur regional economic development and position communities across the country to lead in high-growth, high-wage sectors such as artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and clean energy technology. It also authorizes the $1 billion RECOMPETE pilot program at the Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) to alleviate persistent economic distress and support long-term inclusive economic development and job creation in the most disadvantaged communities.
