WASHINGTON – Today on the floor, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) urged his colleagues to support his amendment to remove a controversial wage provision jeopardizing funding for his Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act. Excerpts of Sen. Cornyn’s remarks are below, and video can be found here.
“Leaving this language in the bill, I do believe, has the potential to weaken support for the broader legislation, and I hope we can all agree that the stakes are too high to risk letting that happen. So, last week I introduced an amendment to strike this unnecessary and divisive provision and maintain strong bipartisan support for the underlying CHIPS for America legislation. A partisan provision with zero impact is hardly a reason to sacrifice the strong bipartisan support we’ve seen for the CHIPS Act.”
“Republicans and Democrats have worked very closely together in, I think, really an encouraging and responsible way to bolster domestic manufacturing of semiconductors and confront one of the biggest looming threats to our national security and our economic security. And now is not the time to back pedal on the progress we’ve made.”
“So soon, I expect, Mr. President, the Senate will vote on my amendment later this evening, and I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this amendment so we can maintain the strong bipartisan support we’ve demonstrated so far for this critical legislation.”