Volume 167, No. 88, covering the 1st Session of the 117th Congress (2021 – 2022), was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“S. 1260” mentioning Catherine Cortez Masto was published in the Senate section on pages S3314-S3316 on May 20.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators’ salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
S. 1260
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, in my lifetime, China has gone from a poor and isolated country to now accounting for nearly 20 percent of global gross domestic product. There is no doubt that the ingenuity of the Chinese people has contributed to this success, but we know the driving force behind this dramatic rise is the aggressiveness of the Chinese Communist Party. Its aims can be summed up with four R’s: resist, reduce, replace, and reorder.
China resists American economic influence by manipulating American businesses and industries and stealing intellectual property. It reduces internal dissent and free expression of ideas through mass surveillance and censorship of its own people, and it seeks to exert its power and influence in the United States. The Chinese Communist Party intends to replace America as the world’s technology leader through the Made in China 2025 initiative, which seeks to achieve Chinese dominance in high-tech manufacturing. Finally, it hopes to reorder international norms and institutions around itself. That is their vision. That is their strategy. That is their plan.
Now, the Chinese Communist Party’s ruling strategy can best be described as “win at all costs.” In other words, they do not play by the same rules we do. And make no mistake, these ambitions paint an alarming picture for the United States and our allies.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr said last year: “It is clear that the PRC,” or People’s Republic of China, “seeks not merely to join the ranks of other advanced industrial economies, but to replace them altogether.”
In everything from electric cars to advanced robotics, to artificial intelligence, China aspires to lead global production and to dominate global production, and they are throwing serious money into the effort to get China there. China is expected to spend $1.4 trillion by 2025 covering investments in everything from 5G to artificial intelligence.
This is not the time for the United States to be complacent, to sit back and watch the Chinese Communist Party pursue tech domination. By the time it has made significant progress, we would be too late. We need to take action now to ensure that our economy and our military can continue to outcompete China, and that is precisely what we can achieve through the Endless Frontier Act.
As Leader McConnell said, a robust amendment process will be critical to this piece of legislation. As I was discussing with Senator Schumer this morning, for most Members, this 1,500-page substitute bill landed on their desks just a little bit earlier this week, so it is going to take a little time for us to understand and to digest the complexity and the ambitions, really, I should say, of this bill.
In the coming days, I hope the Senate will vote on amendments from Members on both sides that will strengthen this legislation and ensure that it addresses the broad range of strategic threats we are facing.
One of the most urgent priorities is to secure the supply chains of our most important products. We really learned that from the pandemic. When the COVID-19 virus hit, starting in China and then spreading around the world, we learned that China made most of the personal protective equipment in the world, and thus we were competing with China and other parts of the world to get access to the personal protective equipment that our first responders, our frontline healthcare workers, and others needed in order to be safe. That was one of the first signs that our supply chains may be vulnerable.
But before any piece of technology becomes usable for its audience, it includes parts and pieces and materials that literally come from around the world. This was the theory of globalization: Go wherever this product can be produced the least expensively. But we didn’t count on pandemics. We didn’t count on natural disasters. We didn’t count on the potential for military conflict to jeopardize the availability of these essential products. Regardless of where a product is finally assembled and packaged, each of those individual pieces is key to protecting the supply chains of our most valuable assets.
Right now, supply chains for everything from cars and cell phones to missile defense, to communication systems are at risk because of one tiny piece of technology called a semiconductor or a microelectric chip. It goes by numerous names.
I have shown a floor chart previously, and I will probably bring it out again sometime here before we are through, but the fact is, the United States relies heavily on other countries for these essential advanced semiconductors.
Nearly 90 percent of those chips are made by companies in Southeast Asia, including Taiwan. As a matter of fact, Taiwan alone produces 63 percent of the world’s advanced semiconductors, and we depend on that sole source for these most advanced microchips. One company, Taiwan Semiconductor, accounted for more than half of the total foundry revenues last year, and, as I said, companies in Taiwan control 63 percent of the market.
If for any reason that supply chain was cut off, it would lead to very, very serious economic and security consequences across our entire economy. In recent months, we have gotten a glimpse of what this might look like, particularly when it comes to our car manufacturing capacity.
At the beginning of the pandemic, automaker suppliers predicted a drop in car sales, and so they canceled their orders for semiconductor chips. Semiconductor manufacturers replaced the auto chip capacity with other in-demand products, like chips for personal computers that kept kids learning while they were at home or chips that went into ventilators to keep COVID-19 patients alive. But American consumers kept buying cars at prepandemic rates, and the carmakers needed to make up for the chip to meet that demand. Unfortunately, restoring the production of auto chips is not a quick or easy process. There is a long lead time, in fact, to manufacturing a single chip, which can take up to 6 months.
Although chipmakers are filling auto chip orders, we are still likely to face a shortage that may last throughout the summer. In response, some automakers have removed certain technology and extra features, like GPS, from vehicles in order to reduce the number of chips they need. Others have cut production across the board and laid off some of their workforce. But as bad as that may sound, it could be much, much worse.
The squeeze we are feeling now is more or less the result of a backlog, and we have every expectation that in a few months, things will return to normal. But what if, instead of a decrease in supply due to increased demand, the supply was cut off entirely? This is not some fictional doomsday scenario; it is a real possibility. Our dependence on other countries for these chips could leave us in a very vulnerable position if access were suddenly cut off or restricted.
Unlike the supply chain shortages we experienced at the start of the pandemic for things like PPE, hand sanitizer, and the like, there is no quick fix here. In order to build a single chip, you need very expensive and highly advanced equipment. You need the skilled workforce. And, as I said before, you need quite a bit of time because it can take months to build a single chip, and that is assuming you have the facility and all the equipment ready to go.
A couple of weeks ago, I met with executives in Dallas who represent a full range of businesses and industries impacted by the current chip shortage. An executive at Qorvo talked about how the process of building a new chip fabrication facility isn’t just expensive; it is time-consuming. It can take years to receive all of the high-
functioning equipment necessary to build advanced microchips. Building a foundry is a huge undertaking that requires a massive investment. A single foundry where these advanced semiconductors are built can cost upwards of $10 to $20 billion–$10 to $20 billion. Indeed, that is the reason why we are so reliant on Taiwan, because it is a low-cost provider. Again, we made the mistake of thinking that cost was the only thing that mattered, as opposed to dependability of our supply chain. So there is a clear need to bolster our domestic semiconductor manufacturing.
The United States is not the only country that sees the handwriting on the wall. Other parts of the world, from South Korea to China itself, to the European Union, are investing billions of dollars in new manufacturing capacity. Right now, as I speak, there is one semiconductor foundry being planned for Arizona by Taiwan Semiconductor. China is building 17 while we are just getting started to build 1.
As I said, the European Union is investing huge amounts of money, about $35 billion; South Korea is investing $65 billion; and China is investing a whopping $150 billion in semiconductor manufacturing. Other countries around the world recognize the risks to their economy and their national security given the current semiconductor manufacturing landscape.
Our competitors are pouring tens of billions of dollars into boosting their supplies, and the United States needs to do likewise, which is why Senator Warner, the Senator from Virginia, and I introduced CHIPS for America Act last year. The premise of this legislation is straightforward: to create a Federal incentive program to encourage chip manufacturing here in the U.S. of A. Rather than rely on manufacturers in Taiwan or China or compete against other countries for the limited supply of chips worldwide, let’s bolster the supply of American-made semiconductors. This way, we can secure our most critical supply chains, create thousands of well-paying American jobs, and boost our global competitiveness by supplying made-in-America chips to our friends and allies around the world.
We weren’t alone in thinking this is a good idea. In fact, when we considered the authorization for this CHIPS for America Act in the Defense authorization bill last December, it passed with a vote of 96 to 4. So it is clear that the entire Senate understands the gravity of this issue and its importance. That authorization became law in January, and now we have the job of fully funding these programs so they can actually get to work turning over dirt and getting these foundries off the ground.
The strong support for this legislation on a bipartisan basis shows that this is a priority for a majority of the Members of this body. There is no reason these funding programs shouldn’t be bipartisan too.
We are already seeing divisions about provisions related to the payment of a prevailing wage, so-called Davis-Bacon provisions, which is, frankly, dividing us, which is a moot issue given the current wages of U.S. semiconductor manufacturing companies. It is a nonissue for them. Yet some of our Democratic colleagues decided to insert this divisive issue in this underlying Endless Frontier bill.
We should not allow unnecessary or purely political provisions to weaken our strong support to our consensus commitment to deal with these vulnerable supply chains. I am committed to securing funding to bolster our domestic semiconductor manufacturing, and there have been a lot of conversations about the most effective way to do so. But let me be clear. The Davis-Bacon provisions inserted into the committee markup in the Endless Frontier bill is jeopardizing this funding.
I hope our friends on the other side of the aisle will work with us in good faith to come up with a compromise that allows this funding to pass with broad bipartisan support, just like the CHIPS for America Act. There is a clear and present need and, I might say, a clear and present danger to the United States.
We need to bolster our domestic semiconductor manufacturing and secure one of our most vulnerable supply chains. As I said, this is a matter of both our economic and national security and something far too important to fall prey to partisan jockeying.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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