President Joe Biden will sign the Chips and Science Act into law Aug. 9 and speak in the Rose Garden, the White House said Aug. 3. “This bill will lower the cost of everyday goods, strengthen American manufacturing and innovation, create good-paying jobs, and bolster our economic and national security,” the White House said.
A new Senate bill could impose sanctions on companies doing business with entities committing human rights abuses against Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang region. The Sanctioning Supporters of Slave Labor Act, introduced this week by Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., would impose secondary sanctions on people or entities doing business or providing “support” for entities that have been sanctioned for Uyghur-related human rights abuses, the lawmakers said. They said a companion bill has been introduced in the House.
A bipartisan group of senators last week urged the Commerce Department to add China’s Yangtze Memory Technologies Company to the Entity List, Reuters reported Aug. 1. In a July 28 letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, the senators, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said YMTC is an “immediate threat” to the U.S. and should be subject to strict export licensing requirements. “By failing to add YMTC to the Entity List, the U.S. Department of Commerce is allowing the PRC to exploit our technological sector and supply sanctioned parties in China,” the letter said, according to the report. A Commerce spokesperson said the agency received the letter and will respond. Spokespeople for the lawmakers didn’t immediately comment. The letter came a little more than a week after members of the Senate Banking Committee urged Bureau of Industry and Security Undersecretary Alan Estevez to add YMTC to the Entity List (see 2207150023).
The House of Representatives passed a bill that offers tax credits and grants to semiconductor manufacturers and increases government spending on science research, on a 243-187 vote on July 28. Twenty-four Republicans voted for the bill. Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., voted present, as her family founded major chipmaker Qualcomm, which will benefit from the bill.
Senate Finance Committee members praised the experience of Doug McKalip, the administration's nominee to be chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. McKalip, a senior adviser on international trade policy and other matters to the agriculture secretary, is a career staffer at USDA.
Trade groups that represent semiconductor manufacturers and customers lauded the Senate's passage of incentives for domestic manufacturing, while unions and a union-funded advocacy group both praised the bill and said trade provisions that were not included still need to pass.
A new Senate Bill could require the U.S. to reimpose terrorism sanctions on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and others associated with the group (see 2112020014). The bill, introduced by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., would re-designate the FARC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, Cruz said in a July 22 emailed news release. Cruz said the Biden administration’s decision to “dismantle” the sanctions “has already created catastrophes” and removed accountability for the group. “My bill will begin to repair the damage of this decision,” Cruz said.
Although climate advocate Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., has hopes of introducing a bipartisan carbon border adjustment tax, he said it may take American exports being hit with carbon border tariffs in Europe to get Congress to move.
Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del, and Todd Young, R-Ind., propose that the adminsitration be able to expedite export licensing decisions and regulatory processes for countries that are facing economic coercion, such as Australia or Lithuania. The recently introduced bill also says Congress should appropriate money for export financing and sovereign loan guarantees and waive some policy requrirements to facilitate export financing. The senators say that the president would need to coordinate with allies and consult wtih Congress about whether a country is the target of economic coercion and what support is appropriate. Any actions would sunset after two years.
A group of Senate Republicans this week introduced a bill that would restrict certain U.S. crude oil exports from being shipped to foreign “adversaries.” The No Emergency Crude Oil for Foreign Adversaries Act would block U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve auctions from selling oil to China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, with certain exceptions for “national security reasons.” The bill would also require the Energy Department to report on the destinations of exported oil from previous auctions.