WASHINGTON – The House voted Friday to pass the America COMPETES Act, a bill that aims to increase U.S. competitiveness with China and to address the country’s shortage of semiconductors by strengthening the country’s supply chain.
The legislation was approved on a 222-210 vote. One Republican, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, voted for the bill. Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida was the only Democrat to vote against it.
The bill’s Senate counterpart, the US Innovation and Competition Act of 2021, passed with the support of 19 Republican Senators in June. Now that the House version of the legislation passed, the differences between the two bills will be reconciled by conference committee.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said last week the COMPETES Act “will supercharge our investment in CHIPS, advance manufacturing at home, strengthen our supply chain, transform our research capacity and advance our competitiveness and leadership abroad.”
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo called the legislative package “the biggest investment in 50 years” to boost America’s competitiveness, manufacturing capacity and research and development.
The bill includes $52 billion to support domestic manufacturing and research of semiconductors, the chips that are used in electronic devices and have faced shortages throughout the pandemic, contributing to delays and increased costs.
The incentives for semiconductor production come as the U.S. has increasingly relied on imports for computer chips. Twelve percent of the world’s chips are made in the U.S., down from 37% in the 1990s, according to industry officials. About 80% are made in Asia.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters on Wednesday that “the pandemic has magnified the need for us to have domestic supplies so that we are not vulnerable from a national security sense, or from an economic sense, to supply chains being interrupted as has happened now.”
“We’re out of time,” Raimondo told USA TODAY in an interview ahead of the vote. “The last 30 years, we’ve just seen a decline, a withering of semiconductor manufacturing in America, of manufacturing generally. We don’t have time to go small or slow. We have to go bigger and go faster.”

The bill also authorizes $45 billion to strengthen the supply chain. It establishes a new directive for Science and Engineering Solutions and provides additional funding for the National Science Foundation, but less than the amount proposed in the Senate version.
Despite the GOP support for the legislation in the Senate, House Republicans including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., accused the House bill of being weak on China.
McCarthy in a statement last week called the bill “a façade to cover up the Democrats’ reluctance to actually do anything to hold China accountable.”
Raimondo called McCarthy’s attacks on the legislation “ridiculous,” adding that, “If you’re serious about strengthening our competitiveness against China, and rebuilding American manufacturing, you will vote for this bill.”
She pointed to 16 former U.S national security officials – including Republicans – who urged passage of the bill this week and cited its backing from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, labor groups and the semiconductor industry. She said the legislation itself is a compilation of several bipartisan-backed bills that Republicans have supported in the past.
Murphy objected to portions of the bill affecting trade.
“The trade section of the bill includes problematic, poorly-vetted provisions and excludes sensible, bipartisan provisions that were part of the Senate-passed version of the bill,” Murphy said in a statement following her vote.
Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., was the sole Democrat to vote against the procedural vote to open debate on the bill. She said Democratic leadership had allowed Republicans to politicize the bill, and that her vote “was a shot across the bow to the Democratic leadership to make clear that they need to get serious about compromising with the Senate to get this bill signed into law.”
“Passing a bill just through the House will do nothing to get microchips to the auto plants I represent,” Slotkin warned.
More:Senate passes bill to boost US science and tech innovation to compete with China
The vote is a win for the Biden administration after Congress failed to pass his Build Back Better climate and social spending package and voting rights legislation. In a statement released last week, President Joe Biden said the bill would “make our supply chains stronger and reinvigorate the innovation engine of our economy to outcompete China and the rest of the world for decades to come.”
“Together,” Biden added, “we have an opportunity to show China and the rest of the world that the 21st century will be the American century – forged by the ingenuity and hard work of our innovators, workers, and businesses.”
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