House to Vote on America Competes Act This Week

This week the House of Representatives is scheduled to take up the America Competes Act which is the long-awaited response to the bill the Senate passed in June known as the US Innovation and Competition Act (USICA). The House bill has some differences with the Senate version. If it passes the House, leaders in both Chambers will need to resolve their differences in a conference committee.

While many details are still unknown, the bill is described as a comprehensive legislative package designed to:

• Strengthen the Supply Chain and US Manufacturing

  Authorizes $45 billion to improve the nations supply chains and manufacturing of critical goods, industrial equipment and manufacturing technology

• Create the CHIPS for America Fund

  Includes $52 billion for CHIPS for America Act which will incentivize private sector investments and work to ensure more semiconductors are produced here in the US

• Invest in Solar Manufacturing and Enhanced Grid Resistance

Authorizes $3 billion to fund the establishment of a domestic solar manufacturing supply chain incentivizing the new construction of solar manufacturing facilities

The effort in the House to advance the bill is in concert with the Biden Administration’s recent initiatives to ramp up domestic manufacturing for critical goods, tackle current supply chain bottlenecks, revitalize our manufacturing base, and create good jobs. This bill would create approximately 7,000 construction jobs. However, with a multitude of amendments also being considered for the bill, and the many details on exactly how the bill could take shape, there is much more to learn on how this could affect our industry.

What Happens Next

If the Competes Act passes this week as expected, the House and Senate would then arrange to begin conference committee negotiations. Though Leader Schumer has the aggressive timeline of finishing negotiations by the April spring recess, it is more likely the negotiations will continue into May, if not longer. Not surprisingly, the Administration is pushing for a swift passage of a final legislative package before summer. Even if the package doesn’t pass this year, there is wide agreement in Washington on many of the issues the legislation seeks to address so this legislation could be revisited in 2023 when the Republicans are expected to control Congress.

VMA’s Government Affairs Committee will continue to monitor developments, and also work to clarify much of the ambiguity in the current bill. For questions, contact Marc Pasternak at mpasternak@vma.org.