TRANSCRIPT: Schumer Directs Senate Committees To Craft Legislation To Strengthen U.S. Semiconductor Industry, To Protect American Jobs And Outcompete China

Washington, D.C. – Today, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), discussed his push to direct Senate committees to craft legislation to protect American jobs and outcompete China.  Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Today on our caucus call, I directed the chairs and members of our relevant committees to start drafting a legislative package to outcompete China and create new American jobs.

The legislation will have as its centerpiece a bicameral, bipartisan bill, the Endless Frontiers Act, which I introduced last year with (Sen.) Todd Young (R-IN), and Representatives Ro Khanna (D-CA), and Mike Gallagher (R-WI) in the House. And it will take the key cutting industries and make American investments so we will outcompete China in all of them.

In addition, we will make serious investments in strengthening the US semiconductor industry to outcompete China and stop depending on foreign sources.

Right now, semiconductor manufacturing is a dangerous weak spot in our economy and in our national security. That has to change.

You've all seen that auto plants throughout America are closed because they can't get the chips. We cannot rely on foreign processors for the chips. We cannot let China get ahead of us in chip production. This will be part of the proposal that we will introduce.

We will also talk about the build out of 5G and how America can remain number one there. And all of these have bipartisan support. The bill we will intend to introduce, and I talked to Senator Young about it, and he's eager to get it done, will be bipartisan.

Our intention is to put this legislation on the Senate floor for a vote this spring.

To get a little more specific, the new legislation must achieve three goals: enhance American competitiveness with China by investing in American innovation, American workers and American manufacturing; invest in strategic partners and alliances: NATO, Southeast Asia and India; and expose, curb, and end once and for all China's predatory practices which have hurt so many American jobs.

We're looking at emergency funding to implement the bipartisan Semiconductor Program as part of this package. You all know about the chip shortage. I want this bill to address America's short term and long term plan to protect the semiconductor supply chain and to keep us number one in things like AI, 5G, quantum computing, biomedical research, storage. All of these things are part of the bill and the Endless Frontiers Act.

So we need to get a bill like this to the president's desk quickly to protect America's long term economic and national security.

###