Mammoth Tech Bill Clears Senate With Bipartisan Support

A huge round of financing aimed at keeping U.S. technology competitive with China advances with 68 votes.

The U.S. Capitol (photo by David Lat).

The news from Capitol Hill these days inevitably tends to center on the seemingly doomed infrastructure negotiations. And why not? Conflict makes for good headlines. With the White House still hundreds of billions away from Republicans’ lowball infrastructure offer, there is going to be plenty more conflict on that front.

But while everyone’s been distracted by the apparent partisan gridlock on infrastructure, the Senate went ahead and quietly passed one of the largest industrial bills in American history. What’s more, the bill passed with an overwhelming bipartisan Senate majority.

The core of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, formerly known as “Endless Frontier,” was authored by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Todd Young, a Republican from Indiana (the pair likely had the assistance of a small army of congressional staffers given that the final version of the Senate bill clocks in at around 2,400 pages). It seeks to distribute $250 billion to improve American manufacturing and tech capabilities.

Nearly $52 billion is set aside in the bill to fund semiconductor research, design, and manufacturing work. The measure would overhaul the National Science Foundation, and between fiscal year 2022 and 2026, appropriate tens of billions for the agency.

If it ultimately becomes law, it will establish a Directorate for Technology and Innovation. The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act creates grants, facilitates agreements between private companies and research universities to speed the development of new technology, and seeks to reinforce weak spots in critical supply chains that were only recently revealed by the pandemic. After a frenzy of insertions into the bill to win it broader support in the Senate, it also includes a new round of funding for NASA and doubles the yearly budget for a Pentagon research agency.

Somewhat amazingly, given our current political climate, the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act passed in the Senate with a strong bipartisan vote of 68-32. The reason for this overwhelming support from both sides of the aisle might have a little bit to do with lawmakers’ renewed option to try to insert pet projects into legislation. But even more powerful was the bill’s selling point as a powerful counter to the growing economic competitiveness of China and other authoritarian rivals overseas.

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Even many conservatives who are typically wary of large spending bills under Democratic administrations were on board, so long as they could portray their support as an effort to keep up with China.

“This type of targeted investment in a critical industry was unthinkable just a couple years ago, but the need for smart industrial policy is now widely accepted,” said Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, according to the New York Times.

“For everything from national security to economic policy, there’s a clear and urgent need to reorient the way our country views and responds to the challenge from China,” added Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican who has in the past criticized government subsidization of the semiconductor industry but now views it as a necessity.

The urgency to compete with China and other growing industrial and technological economies might be one of the few things that can unite Democratic and Republican lawmakers in the current political climate. Still, although the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act passed with strong support in the Senate, it faces additional hurdles in the House.

Both Democrats and Republicans in the House have expressed displeasure with some aspects of the legislation. If the bill can survive another round of lobbying as it works its way through the House chamber, it will become law: President Biden applauded the Senate for passing the measure, and expressed hope that he would sign it into law “as soon as possible.”

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Even though partisan gridlock fills the headlines, it’s worth remembering that the occasional bipartisan bill rises above the rancor. Apparently, combating the economic threat posed by Chinese innovation with a massive investment in high-tech American industry and advanced research is just the kind of uniting force lawmakers need to at least temporarily set aside their differences.


Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.