Parliament Passes Bill Adding Billions to Research to Compete With China

[ad_1]

WASHINGTON — The House on Friday passed a law that would pour nearly $300 billion into scientific research and development and support domestic production, sparking a dispute with the Senate on how best to invest in scientific innovation to strengthen American competitiveness and counter China.

The 222-210 vote on the 2,900-page bill that sprung up was part of a renewed effort by the Biden administration and the Democrats on Capitol Hill to bail out stalled industrial policy legislation to combat persistent supply chain problems and inflation fueled by semiconductor shortages. .

Among other things, it will provide semiconductor manufacturers with $52 billion in grants and subsidies and $45 billion in grants and loans to support supply chain flexibility and American manufacturing. If the law goes into effect, it would be the US’s most sweeping attempt ever against China to have the government play a key role in boosting technological advances and industrial growth.

At a news conference Friday morning, California Spokesperson Nancy Pelosi said the bill would enable the United States to prevail in manufacturing, innovation and economic power and “outshine any nation”.

“This bill we’re talking about today is an employment bill,” said Ms. Pelosi. “A bill of business made in America for production in America.”

Most Republicans objected, arguing that the bill was not tough enough for Beijing and was loaded with too many foreign provisions, including funding for marine mammal research and efforts to protect coral reefs.

California Republican and minority leader Representative Kevin McCarthy said the bill showed Democrats prioritized welfare and climate change over real efforts to compete with China.

“It’s wasting billions of dollars on unrelated matters, and it contains no measures to make China pay for the chaos they’ve created,” he said.

Given the disagreements between the Assembly and the Assembly, it has little chance of becoming law in its current form. The Senate, which passed a version last year with bilateral support. Administration officials have urged Congress to quickly negotiate and send a compromise bill to President Biden’s table, but there are deep ideological differences between the two chambers over how punitive China should be and how scientific research should be funded.

House Democrats argued that the Senate bill was too prescriptive in allocating funds to certain cutting-edge areas such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Putting few conditions on the new round of funding for scientific research, their bill puts more emphasis on boosting basic research in many areas, notably climate change.

“We are moving to address critical needs identified by the science community, industry, academia and other stakeholders as what they most need to be successful in the 21st century,” said Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Texas Democrat and chair of the Science Committee. .

Because both House and Senate bills are so far-reaching, lawmakers will have no shortage of issues to discuss. These provisions include a House-led effort to make it harder for Chinese companies to import cheap goods to the US duty-free, and a Senate-led effort to reinstate previously granted exceptions to tariffs imposed by former President Donald J. Trump on China. .

The provision with the most bipartisan support so far is money for chip makers. Semiconductor companies like Intel say It will increase the attractiveness of investment in the United States.

But many Republicans, some of whom had previously approved parts of the bill in committee or on the House floor, said they could not support the broader legislation with too many additional measures they deemed unnecessary.

“This is a missed opportunity to accelerate a proactive trade agenda, protect America and strengthen American innovation, and alleviate some of the supply chain and workforce pressures our nation faces,” said Adrian Smith, a Republican of Nebraska.

Many of the foreign policy measures added to the House bill by Democrats focus on climate change, and other provisions are written as symbolic endorsements rather than binding legislation or mirror measures. already passed by Congress. It will authorize $225 million over five years to support the State Department’s military education and training programs in the Indo-Pacific region.

Other House Republicans argued that while trying to counter China’s stranglehold on the global supply chain, the legislation went too far in trying to copy Beijing’s approach to industrial policy.

“I know the Democrats want to say this is a competitive bill, but this takes a page out of China’s playbook,” said Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the top Republican Washington Representative on the Energy and Commerce Committee. “It’s trying to spend more than China. China has a centralized industrial policy. China chooses winners and losers based on their political allies.”

The argument that lawmakers should not be in the business of choosing “winners and losers” has long kept Republicans from approving significant government intervention in industrial policy. But in recent years, a growing number of Senate Republicans have shown more interest in supporting such investments, arguing that government subsidies to industries such as semiconductors are necessary to compete with China.

The 2,400-page Senate bill, passed in June, would pour nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars into scientific research and development over the next five years to increase its competitiveness against China.

Some lawmakers in the Senate who wanted to support research initiatives in their states have successfully changed many of the laws. 100 billion dollars It was designated as a research and development center for basic research alongside laboratories run by the Department of Energy, a research and development center for emerging technologies at the National Science Foundation.

[ad_2]

Source link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *