America COMPETES Act Faces Republican Opposition In The Senate

Legislation intended to make the United States more competitive economically with China was approved in the House but faces a difficult road to final passage, as Republican support has largely dried up.

The $350 billion America COMPETES Act contains measures to incentivize domestic semiconductor production and beef up the U.S. supply chain, goals that have broad bipartisan support. But Republicans in the House complained the bill is not tough enough on China and say Democrats poisoned the bill with ‘Green New Deal initiatives, helping explain why it had the support of just one Republican in Friday’s 222-210 vote.

The bill will now be reconciled with its Senate counterpart, the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act of 2021, which passed in that chamber last June with the support of 19 Republicans. But those GOP Senators say changes will have to be made to the House measure if there’s any hope of getting something passed into law.

“There were actually parts of the bill that I supported,” said Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-OK5) in an interview Wednesday. “Originally, many of the provisions in there were bipartisan provisions…but unfortunately Democrats decided to put a lot of things in there that were Green New Deal initiatives and completely broke apart the bipartisanship that was moving forward.”

The COMPETES Act would put $52 billion toward enhancing domestic research and production of semiconductors, a shortage of which has plagued automakers and electronics suppliers during the Covid pandemic. The bill also proposes using $45 billion to beef up the U.S. supply chain.

Bice says she could get behind those portions of the bill, but she and other Republicans say the bill showed favoritism to organized labor and included trade policy that is not tough enough on China.

"If we’re really serious about going after China, competing with China," said Bice, "we need to be looking at things like supply chain, we need to be looking at things like rare earth minerals, semiconductors, and we need to hold them accountable for intellectual property theft."

But perhaps nothing pushed Republicans away as much as the inclusion of climate friendly measures, such as an $8 billion U.S. contribution to the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund.

"And now you have a bill that gives $8 billion to a sort of Green New Deal slush fund for the U.N.," Bice said,

"Since the Democrats lost the Build Back Better bill and voting rights [legislation]," said Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK4), "they keep trying to put Build Back Better in every other thing and it’s poisoning every other piece of legislation."

Congressman Cole says House leadership ultimately knows that, if they have any hope of putting something on President Biden's desk, they'll have to take some of these controversial items out.

"This is just a vehicle to go to conference with the Senate and see whether or not they can hash something out," said Cole, "but we’re not going to see anything remotely that looks like what the house passed coming to the floor of the house and the senate as a final product, in my view."