WASHINGTON — An economic competitiveness package meant to boost U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and scientific research is on track to pass the Senate this week after overcoming a filibuster Tuesday.
The Senate voted 64-32 to invoke cloture, limiting debate on the measure and teeing it up for final passage by Wednesday, in time for the House to send it to President Joe Biden’s desk before the August recess.
Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said in floor remarks ahead of Tuesday’s vote that it would set up work to wrap on the bill “before the end of the week.” Schumer said the moment was several years in the making and described the package as “one of the most consequential bipartisan achievements of this Congress.”
The procedural vote to move forward with the bill known as “chips-plus” was delayed after severe thunderstorms disrupted senators commuting back to Washington on Monday evening. Final passage could still come Wednesday, though later in the day than if senators had voted Monday night. The Senate could vote on final passage sooner if all members give unanimous consent to speed up the clock.
The bill is a trimmed-down version of a broader economic competitiveness package the Senate passed last year. After bicameral conference negotiations to resolve differences between that measure and a House-passed version hit snags, including on trade, the Senate pulled out chips and science provisions with the hopes of wrapping up a package by the time lawmakers left for their summer break.
The chips-plus package includes $54 billion in five-year grants for semiconductor manufacturing and research as well as 5G wireless deployment, a 25% tax credit for investments in semiconductor manufacturing facilities through 2026, funding authorization for the National Science Foundation and other science-focused measures from a bill Schumer worked on with Republican Sen. Todd Young of Indiana.
Schumer added the science provisions back into the package after holding a test vote last week to gauge their GOP support. The motion to proceed was adopted on a 64-34 vote, with 16 Republicans on board.
The vote tally shifted somewhat Tuesday after several senators tested positive for COVID-19, meaning they’ll need to isolate for several days. Sens. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, both announced Monday that they had tested positive.
Seventeen Republican senators voted for cloture Tuesday. The bill’s backers won support for cloture from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who initially voted against the motion to proceed last week when it wasn’t clear what the Senate substitute ultimately would look like.
GOP Sens. Jerry Moran of Kansas and Richard M. Burr of North Carolina also flipped their votes to support cloture, after voting “no” on the motion to proceed last week. South Dakota GOP Sen. Mike Rounds also reversed himself from last week but went the opposite way, voting against cloture on Tuesday.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., who was absent for last week’s vote on the motion to proceed, voted “no” on cloture Tuesday.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., as expected was the only member of the Democratic caucus to vote against advancing the chips bill, which he has derided as “corporate welfare.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a letter to colleagues last week that she was “optimistic” that the House could take up the slimmed-down bill as early as this week, which would clear it before members are scheduled to leave town Friday for their summer recess.
As senators prepared to move ahead on the smaller package Tuesday, Schumer said lawmakers will continue working on pieces of the original Senate and House packages that didn’t make it into the trimmed chips and science bill. He said he intends to put a final product of the conference committee on the Senate floor at some point.
Before Congress wraps up the trimmed-down measure, the Senate is expected to pull another piece out of the conference negotiations to move sooner.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, told reporters Tuesday the “four corners” of Senate and House leadership have “cleared” the addition of language he’d been pushing to protect taxpayer-funded research and intellectual property from being stolen by adversaries like China. He said the language, which he expects to be added to the bill by unanimous consent later Tuesday, is a “skinnied-down version for which there is absolutely no controversy” of a bill he authored and the Senate incorporated last year in its broader competition bill.
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(Lindsey McPherson contributed to this report.)
