With a razor close election coming to a close, it might not be surprising that even the future of the US CHIPS Act has come up and is causing controversy.
On the value and impact of the CHIPS Act, former President Trump and Vice President Harris have been polar opposites. Trump recently said “the chip deal is so bad” and noted that Taiwan, home of advanced node chip leader TSMC “stole our chip business.”
Meanwhile, Harris has lauded the act while serving under President Biden, who signed the bipartisan act into law in 2022. She’s been named as a supporter on every one of the nearly two dozen preliminary grants totaling more than $30 billion given out by the CHIPS Act administrators at the Commerce Department and NIST. The law set out $52 billion in all, with $39 billion for grants, plus loans and 25% tax credits.
The candidates’ chip views came into focus again in the closing days of the campaign, when House Speaker Johnson, R-La., told reporters Friday, four days before Tuesday’s election, that the GOP in the next Congress convening in early 2025 “probably will” try to repeal the law. He quickly backpedaled on the comment, after a fellow Republican Congressman in a close race in New York welcomed the economic benefit of Micron building a $20 billion chip fab in the state under sponsorship by the CHIPS Act.
“The CHIPS Act is hugely impactful here,” said the Congressman, US Rep. Brandon Williams, R-NY. He issued a statement saying Johnson “apologized profusely” for his blunder and said he had “misheard the question,” and elaborated in an interview posted on Youtube.
Johnson has since said the CHIPS Act is not on the GOP agenda for repeal.
Semiconductor industry officials see Johnson’s comments as more serious than a mere campaign flub or a dust-up between the candidates. SEMI Americas president Joe Stockunas told Bloomberg that so far, only one company, Polar Semiconductor has received a binding contract under the CHIPS Act for $123 million, while nearly two dozen other award announcements still await contracts. SEMI and the Semiconductor Industry Association represent thousands of electronics and semiconductor companies and have been strong CHIPS Act supporters.
“It’s actually pretty tough for me to stomach right now because we’ve really seen good momentum built this year,” Stockunas told Bloomberg. He fears further delays in contracts, no matter which administration serves after Biden departs.
One of the biggest supporters of the CHIPS Act was Intel, also a recipient of a preliminary grant worth more than $9 billion that still has not closed. CEO Pat Gelsinger noted recently that the CHIPS Act was a bipartisan measure “with strong support from both sides of the aisle.”
While there is obvious uncertainty among some leaders about the Act’s future, it is hard to gauge how serious the concerns are, especially against the backdrop of the future possible tariffs under either new administration.
SEMI released a statement to Fierce Electronics urging execution of the CHIPS Act: “As we have observed is common every four years, a new Administration reviews programs and procedures as they install appointed and Senate-confirmed leaders to oversee departments and agencies. Regardless of the election outcome, SEMI encourages the U.S. government to continue to execute the programs appropriated under the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 without unnecessary delays."
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