WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator and Senate Auto Caucus co-chair Sherrod Brown (D-OH) urged the House to quickly pass America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology and Economic Strength (COMPETES) Act of 2022, the House version of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA). Following swift passage of the House’s America COMPETES Act, both chambers will negotiate a final bill and send it to the president’s desk to be signed into law.

The America COMPETES Act contains Brown’s Leveling the Playing Field 2.0 Act as well as the CHIPS For America Act. The package will make a once-in-a-generation investment in American science, technology and innovation to help the U.S. preserve its competitive edge. Earlier this month, Brown wrote to Congressional leadership, urging swift passage of revised bipartisan legislation to invest in manufacturing and address the global semiconductor shortage facing auto manufacturing. The Senator’s priorities laid out in the letter were included in the introduction of the America COMPETES Act

“We need bipartisan legislation to better compete with China, bring critical supply chains home to the U.S., and ensure the technologies that drive the next generation of economic growth and manufacturing will be developed in America, and put Ohioans to work at good paying jobs. Passing the America COMPETES Act in the House, including my bipartisan Leveling the Playing Field 2.0, will bring us closer to combatting trade cheats like the Chinese government, that pour billions into targeting American manufacturing and our industrial base, undermining American workers and businesses. The House needs to pass this quickly, so both chambers can negotiate a conference report and get a bill to the president’s desk,” said Brown.

The bipartisan US Innovation and Competition Act and America COMPETES Act include key provisions from the CHIPS for America Act that will provide more than $50 billion to fully implement American semiconductor production.

Both bills also contain Brown’s Leveling the Playing Field 2.0 Act, which was introduced last April. The bipartisan legislation will strengthen U.S. trade remedy laws and ensure they remain effective tools to fight back against unfair trade practices and protect American workers. The senator’s legislation would establish the new concept of “successive investigations” to improve the effectiveness of the U.S. trade remedy system in responding to repeat offenders and serial cheaters, helping to level the playing field for American workers. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL) introduced companion legislation in the House.

Last June, the Senate passed USICA, which invests in American workers and our nation’s long-term competitiveness by shoring up critical industries like semiconductors, which are facing a global shortage. All sectors of the economy need access to semiconductor chips; however, the need is particularly significant for the domestic auto industry. Today’s cars include high-end electronic components that improve vehicle efficiency and safety, and these electronic components rely upon semiconductors to function.

USICA includes Brown’s bill that builds on the success of his bipartisan 2014 legislation, the Revitalize American Manufacturing and Innovation Act, which created a network of 15 manufacturing innovation hubs around the country. This network was modeled after the first manufacturing institute, “America Makes,” in Youngstown, which President Obama directed the Department of Defense to create in 2012. This effort was one of the biggest steps the U.S. had taken to make our manufacturing industry more competitive. America Makes is the nation's leading public-private partnership for additive manufacturing - also called 3D printing - technology and education. Founded in 2012 as the first institute of the Manufacturing USA Network, America Makes brings together members from industry, academia, government, workforce and economic development organizations and is managed by the not-for-profit National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining.

Brown has been working to secure solutions for the semiconductor crisis for months, having written to Brian Deese, Director of the National Economic Council in February, urging the administration to support efforts to secure the necessary funding to swiftly implement the semiconductor-related provisions in the most recent NDAA, to boost semiconductor manufacturing and incentivize the domestic production of semiconductors in the future.

   

###