On the Senate Floor, Brown Urges Colleagues to Pass Bipartisan China Competitiveness Bill

        

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today on the Senate Floor, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), co-chair of the Senate Auto Caucus, urged his colleagues to pass bipartisan legislation that will support American-made semiconductors andbolster other domestic manufacturing to help the United States compete with China.

 

“We know that when we have a level playing field, and when weharness the ingenuity of American workers, we can out-compete anyone. It’s timeto make things in America again,” said Brown. “Ohio has buried the term“Rust Belt.” It’s time for our whole country to bury it. It’s long past time topass a final Make it in America bill and send it to the President’s desk.”

 

Brown has long advocated for legislation to help U.S.manufacturers to compete with China.

 

Last June, the Senate passed the UnitedStates Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 (USICA), whichinvests in American workers and our nation’s long-term competitiveness byshoring up critical industries like semiconductors, which are facing a globalshortage. In February, the House of Representatives passed the AmericaCreating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology andEconomic Strength (COMPETES) Act of 2022, the House version ofUSICA.

 

Brown has been pushing for action to support Americansemiconductor production, which is key to supporting investments in Ohio’smanufacturing. InJanuary, Intel announced a $20billion investment to build a semiconductor plant in New Albany, which isexpected to create 10,000 jobs. The USICA will boost Intel’sinitial investment to create thousands of additional jobs in Ohio.

 

Following the passage of the House version of USICA, Brown andfour of his Senate colleagues sent a letter to Speakerof the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urgingthem to prioritize the pro-worker, pro-environment tradeprovisions bill as the two chambers begin to conference the legislation.

 

The America COMPETES Act contains Brown’s Leveling thePlaying Field 2.0 Act as well as the CHIPSfor America Act. The package will make a once-in-a-generationinvestment in American science, technology and innovation to help the U.S.preserve its competitive edge.

 

In 2021, Brown made several stops around Ohio to discuss thebenefits of USICA. Brown visited America Makes, amanufacturing hub in Youngstown, the Wright Brothers Institute in Dayton, apart of the Air ForceResearch Lab (AFRL), and the Cleveland-based ManufacturingAdvocacy and Growth Network (MAGNET) with Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, todiscuss how USICA would create a tech hub and support and expand manufacturingpartnerships.

 

USICAincludes Brown’s bill that builds on the successof his bipartisan 2014 legislation, the Revitalize AmericanManufacturing and Innovation Act, which created a network of 15manufacturing innovation hubs around the country. This network was modeledafter the first manufacturing institute, “AmericaMakes,”in Youngstown, which President Obama directed the Department of Defenseto create in 2012.This effort was one of the biggest steps the U.S. had taken to make ourmanufacturing industry more competitive. America Makes is the nation's leadingpublic-private partnership for additive manufacturing - also called 3D printing- technology and education.

 

 

For generations, manufacturing was the lifeblood of communitiesacross Ohio and throughout the country.

It was heavily unionized and the jobs paid well – and it’s not a coincidencethat those two things go together.

 

Those jobs allowed generations of Americans to build amiddle-class life. Workers innovated on the shop floor, propelling our economyto new heights and allowing us to lead the world in developing new industries.

But Ohioans know all too well what happened.

 

Beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, we stopped making things inAmerica.

 

Look at places like my hometown of Mansfield, Ohio – an industrialcity of 50,000 halfway between Cleveland and Columbus.

Companies like Westinghouse, Tappan Stove, Ohio Brass, and General Motorsclosed down, one after another.

Go to any town in Ohio, and people can name a similar list – they now measuretheir local history in lost plants and lost jobs.

All over America, companies were moving production elsewhere, in the name of,quote, “efficiency” – “efficiency” being business school speak for “lowerwages.”

Corporate America wanted cheaper labor, wherever they could find it. First,they went to anti-union, anti-worker, low-wage states, often in the South.Then, when even those wages weren’t low enough, they moved overseas.

And when these companies moved out, they weren’t replaced by new investment.The creative destruction the market fundamentalists like to talk about wasn’tfollowed by any construction – creative or otherwise.

 

That corporate greed was aided by decades of underinvestment, badtrade policy – which these corporations lobbied for – and worse tax policy –which these special interests also lobbied for.

 

It all drove production overseas. Itleft us reliant on other countries – too often, our economic competitors. Itexposed us to supply shocks. And it gutted our middle class.

Ohioans and workers in historic industrial towns felt it first.

Now the whole country is feeling it in the form of higher prices, empty shelves,and months-long waits for products people need.

We need to make more things in America.

That’s not going to happen on its own – not when the economy of the lastfour decades was built on corporations hopping the globe in search of workersto exploit.

And not when countries like China prop up state-owned enterprises,and steal our ideas, monetize them, and use them to compete – and often cheat –against American businesses and American workers.

 

We need a concerted, coordinated effort to invest in our greatestassets: American workers and American innovation.

 

That’s what we are going to do with this competition bill. We needto negotiate a final bill and pass this now.

 

Ohioans needed this a year ago, a decade ago, a generation ago.

Look at what’s happening now in Bucyrus, Ohio.

There are few innovations more quintessentially American than the light bulb.

Every elementary schooler learns that Ohioan Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb at his lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey. And Ohio became the center of lightbulb manufacturing.

But we have seen plants close across Ohio in places like Ravenna and Warren.

We were told that these plants were old and dated – they made old-fashionedincandescent bulbs. Instead, Americans would make new, next-generationtechnology like LED bulbs.

That’s not what’s happened.

 

We just learned that two Ohio factories that were part of the LEDlightbulb supply chain in Ohio – in Bucyrus and Logan – are closing their operations.

Today, 99 percent of LED lightbulb production is in China.

Think about that – 99 percent of production is in China.

And when you move the entire production overseas, you move the shop floorinnovation right along with it. Again, corporate America underestimated theingenuity of American workers – or they just didn’t care.

Or let’s look at the semiconductor shortage.
American research and development created these chips, and American companiesdid most of the manufacturing.

Yet over time, production – often fueled by incentives from foreign countries –moved overseas.

And look what happened: during the pandemic, companies across Ohio and the restof the country shut down production lines and laid off workers because theycouldn’t get enough semiconductors.

 

Whether you are Ford Motor Company in Lima, Whirlpool in Clyde,Kenworth in Chilicothe, or Navistar in Springfield – you need these chips.

In the semiconductor industry, we see the problem – and we see the solution.

At the end of January, Senator Portman and I flew to Columbus to join Intel toannounce the largest ever domestic investment in semiconductor manufacturing.

It’s going to create 10,000 good-paying jobs. Union tradespeopleare going to build the entire facility.

And it’s all possible because we are on the verge of passing a historicinvestment in American innovation and manufacturing.

 

The Senate called it the Innovation and Competition Act. The Housecalls it the COMPETES Act.

 

Let’s call this what it is – it’s theMake it in America Act.

This bill includes the CHIPS Act – to make investments like Intelin Ohio possible, and to position us to lead the world in this industry weinvented.

 

It expands Advanced Manufacturing Hubs – we’re going to createmore of these innovation hubs around the country.

 

And it’s a real, coordinated strategy to invest in Research andDevelopment.

 

We know our competitors like China spend billions propping upstate-owned enterprises and investing in research and development.

 

China has also gotten pretty good at taking our ideas, monetizingthem, and using them to compete against American businesses – while payingtheir workers less and giving them fewer rights.

 

That’s why on the Banking and Housing Committee, we worked to makesure the Senate bill includes powerful new sanctions on Chinese actors whosteal our trade secrets.

 

And it’s why Sen. Portman and I are working to include ourLeveling the Playing Field 2.0 – to give American businesses updated, effectivetools to fight back.

 

We know that when we have a level playing field, and when weharness the ingenuity of American workers, we can out-compete anyone.

 

It’s time to make things in America again.

 

Ohio has buried the term “Rust Belt.” It’s time for our wholecountry to bury it.

 

It’s long past time to pass a final Make it in America bill andsend it to the President’s desk.