Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On President Biden’s Announcement Of A Historic $8.5 Billion Investment To Expand Chip Production In America Made Possible By The Bipartisan CHIPS And Science Act
Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) today spoke on the Senate floor on today’s announcement by President Biden of a historic $8.5 billion investment in American microchip production made possible by the landmark CHIPS and Science Act. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
Today, President Biden will be in Phoenix, Arizona, to roll out a colossal $8.5 billion grant to Intel to expand its chip production here in America, a historic sum made possible by the CHIPS and Science Act, something I was proud to author and push.
Today’s CHIPS announcement lands like a thunderclap: $8.5 billion dollars. Ten thousand manufacturing jobs. Twenty thousand construction jobs. Thousands upon thousands of indirect jobs. $100 billion in private investment. And the ripple effects will be felt across a huge swath of the country – from Oregon to Arizona to New Mexico to Ohio. These are just some of the places where a new golden age of American chip production will manifest itself.
And today’s announcement comes about a month after GlobalFoundries in New York received its own billion-and-a-half dollar award to expand their legacy chip production and further make New York state a global hub for chip manufacturing. And we expect more soon for companies like Micron in central New York. You’ll hear good announcements about that, I believe, soon enough.
One announcement at a time, we’re keeping our promise of bringing manufacturing back to America and making the United States the leader in microchip production once again.
And let me be clear: this isn’t the tech revolution of yesterday – this is something entirely different and entirely new. When people in the future think tech, it won’t be just enough to mention places like Silicon Valley anymore. They’ll think of the Silicon Heartland.
Because of CHIPS and Science, the story of American innovation will now happen in places like New Albany, Ohio, where Intel is building its Ohio One facility. This one facility will create three thousand new jobs and seven thousand union construction jobs. These jobs will pay exceedingly well. And not all are going to require college degrees.
Along with Senators Cantwell, Kelly, Warner, Wyden – and so many of my Republican colleagues too – I want to take a moment to applaud Senator Brown for making CHIPS and Science happen.
Thanks to my good friend Sherrod Brown, these jobs in New Albany will be good-paying union jobs. Because Senator Brown worked with the Administration and worked with Intel, Intel is using a project labor agreement for the deal – which makes sure the workers building this fab are well-prepared and well-compensated.
It’s not just that Intel will directly hire thousands of new workers; the benefits will also extend to universities across the region, especially HBCUs. It will benefit other industries like the auto industry. This investment will help generate a pipeline of high-skilled tech workers right in the heart of Ohio, as well as across Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon. And the benefits will spread across communities that have long been overlooked and long been waiting for a second chance.
Again, this is what so many of us here in the Senate envisioned when we wrote CHIPS and Science. I thought of this years ago. I worked with Senator Young. It took us a long time to convince people how important this was. Today’s announcement by Intel, the one that was announced last month in upstate New York, and many others to come--our faith in this bill is being vindicated, in terms of jobs and in terms of leadership, and not only chip manufacturing, but in science.
So, many of us envisioned this when we wrote CHIPS and Science – a cascade of public investment that in turn creates a fountain of private sector activity.
Today’s announcement is perhaps the clearest signal yet that CHIPS and Science is delivering.
And in the long run, these are the investments we need to keep America safe, keep America competitive, keep America a world leader for innovation and manufacturing in the future. America was the envy of the world for much of the 20th century precisely because of our ambitions in technological innovation and manufacturing.
When I started working on what I then called Endless Frontiers a few years ago –we retitled to CHIPS and Science because too many people thought endless frontiers had something to do with covered wagons – I did it because I knew we had to keep America competitive. And I knew it would take immense investment by the federal government.
Other countries were investing. If we didn't, we would have fallen way, way behind – much to the detriment of industries across America, because so many depend on chips. And much to the detriment of our national security, because not only does our defense industry depend on chips, but if they're made overseas, foreign countries might have sway over us, economically and foreign policy-wise. So, it’s taken a while to get here, but the efforts are truly, truly paying off. And I’m excited and feel vindicated about all the work we put into this.
So, I want to thank President Biden for his leadership in making today’s announcement possible. President Biden understood the need to do this immediately when we talked to him about it. And his administration, particularly Commerce Secretary Raimondo, has done a great job negotiating with the companies as today's announcement shows.
And finally, another shout out to Sherrod Brown, who understood the importance of bringing chip manufacturing to Ohio, for its auto industry and for so much else in a future for a strong manufacturing base in Ohio.
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