The United States Senate voted Monday in favor of a multibillion-dollar bill aimed at boosting high-tech research and manufacturing, countering the influence of the growing China and alleviate the global shortage of computer chips.
The legislation is the Senate’s version of the America Competes bill of the House of Representatives which was approved in February. Lawmakers are expected to begin bipartisan negotiations in the House and Senate to marry the different texts.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the long-stalled legislation would be “one of the most important achievements of the 117th Congress.”
“This bill, for all its provisions, is really about two big things: creating more American jobs and lowering costs for American families,” he told senators.
“It will help reduce costs by making it easier to produce critical technologies like semiconductors here at home. It will create more jobs by bringing manufacturing back from abroad.”
Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have been discussing outlines for starting formal negotiations on the legislation in April, and a floor vote in May or June.
Both the version of the House of Representatives and that of the Senate contemplate the objective of the US president, Joe Biden, to invest 52,000 million dollars in national research and production, marking a victory that could be proclaimed in the face of the mid-term elections. of November.
The 2,900-page House version passed largely along party lines, with Republicans arguing it wasn’t tough enough on China and focused too much on issues like climate change and inequality. Social.
This means that it is destined for a conference committee, where Senate Republicans will have all the influence, since it will take 10 of them to get the final text back to the Upper House.
Schumer said, however, that the legislation would fuel a new generation of American innovation.
“Any country that is the first to master the technologies of tomorrow will reshape the world in its image,” he said on the Senate floor.
“The United States cannot afford to come second when it comes to technologies like 5G, AI (artificial intelligence), quantum computing, semiconductors, bioengineering and much more.”
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