Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks Providing An Update On Bipartisan Chips And Innovation Legislation

Washington, D.C. –  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor as the Senate delayed the cloture vote on bipartisan chips and innovation legislation due to inclement weather. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks on delaying the vote followed by his remarks earlier in the day on the importance of advancing the chips and innovation legislation:

Today the Senate had planned to move forward to end the debate on the bipartisan Chips and innovations bill.

Unfortunately a number of severe thunderstorms on the east coast have disrupted the travel plans of a significant number of Senators. To give members a chance to get back into town safely I am going to delay tonight’s vote on the bipartisan chips and innovation bill until tomorrow morning. I’m hopeful that we can remain on track to finish this legislation A-S-A-P.

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The Senate gavels back in for another busy week of an exceedingly busy work period.

There is a lot we must continue working on to lower costs for the American people, to strengthen health care and lower prescription drug costs, confirm highly qualified nominees, protect our fundamental rights, and fortify U.S. national security interests. None of this is easy but we are moving ahead.

In a few hours, the Senate will take another important step towards finally passing our bipartisan chips and innovation bill by voting to invoke cloture. After more than a year of hard work on fixing US chip supplies and boosting American scientific innovation, we are on the brink of closing the book, passing these critical investments into law.

If cloture is invoked, members should plan to vote on final passage as early as tomorrow evening or Wednesday.

When signed into law, the impacts of this bipartisan chips and innovation bill will last years if not decades. It will mean an increase in American jobs, increased manufacturing here at home, relief for our supply chains, and lower costs for the American people.

Of course, we will also preserve America’s security interests: one of the most important struggles of this century will be the fight for global semiconductor supply. Sadly, America is lagging behind. A recent article from the Wall Street Journal revealed that the Chinese Communist Party is planning 31 major semiconductor fabs planned over the next few years, in a bid to become the world’s leader in new chip factories.

American chip producers are working hard to match this output, but they’re waiting for Congress to finish work on this bill. Tens of billions of dollars, countless good paying jobs are at stake. For that reason, I am glad we are close to pushing this bill over the goal line.

Of course, there is a lot more to celebrate about this bill.

The bipartisan science provisions—many of which I authored in partnership with Senator Young under the Endless Frontier Act more than two years ago—these provisions will unleash a new wave of American scientific innovation that will last and create millions of good-paying jobs for decades to come.

We will invest tens of billions to strengthen the National Science Foundation and plant seeds to cultivate the tech hubs of tomorrow, in regions of the country that have tremendous potential but have long been overlooked.

When we invest in science jobs, that will keep America number one. For decades, the US was consistently the world leader in innovation and scientific research because we made the investments necessary to stay on top, and the result was millions and millions of good paying jobs that made us the strongest economy on earth and the envy of the world.

In the last decade, unfortunately, we have slipped from our place on the mountaintop; this bill will help us recapture that goal and that dream.

The twenty first century will be won or lost on the battleground of technological innovation. This is perhaps the most competitive era in human history; will American workers, will American tech, will American ingenuity shape the world over the next hundred years in the same way that we’ve shaped it in the last hundred? 

I believe we can.  I believe we must. And when we pass this bill, I believe we will.

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