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Floor Speech

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I know we are expecting a vote soon here, and I know that our colleagues know that we will have two votes-- one on a nominee and the second one on a motion to proceed to what has been known as the Innovation and Competition Act. I just wanted to say, because I know there have been a few people out here on the floor--and I won't spend a lot of time now--that, hopefully, we will proceed on the motion to proceed and that we will have a much larger discussion.

I do want to clarify that today's vote is really about whether we are going to stop shipping jobs overseas and instead invest in American R&D. If we invest in American R&D, then we will see the plant, like is being talked about in Ohio, get built instead of getting immediately built in Europe. We will see other companies make investments in States like Texas and Arizona and Idaho and in many other parts of the United States. We will help build an ecosystem here in the United States of technology and next-generation development.

I encourage my colleagues to vote for a bill that makes an investment and competes with the next-generation semiconductors so that we can go even faster with innovation than we are currently doing because so much of that development is happening overseas. It is happening in Taiwan, and it is happening in Korea. They have had ``game on'' for a while. They have had ``game on'' and have literally taken a page out of what the United States has done to attract and keep industry here. Innovation is in the DNA of Americans, and if we want to create the economy of the future, we need to invest in the R&D of today. That means passing this next motion to proceed, getting on the bill, and passing as much of it as we can today. That way, we can be assured that we are not going to lose out in this round of investment that is, yes, very challenging on a global basis.

We should be really realistic. We have a chip shortage today, and it is costing our economy, and it is increasing inflation. We know that there is going to be a chip demand that is going to be threefold from where we are today in the very near future. That means, if we don't start building here, we are not going to catch up. More importantly is the national security element of making sure that the United States is making the most advanced semiconductors.

So today's vote is to say to our colleagues that we believe in the R&D ecosystem of the United States--we believe in the NSF; we believe in our universities; we believe in the DOE--and that we believe that we can do translational science and help our manufacturing base be more competitive whether it is autos or airplanes or other aspects of the tech sector.

This underlying bill invests in 10 key technology areas that we need to make investments in, and it makes sure that we in the United States of America are saying: We want to see that innovation here. We want to see these in tech hubs and in tech centers. We want our universities to translate that science faster and keep our patents and make sure that we are, obviously, continuing to lead the world in innovation. If we fail to do this, I guarantee you that more jobs are going to go overseas.

American R&D can create the hub of innovation that we would like to see for the future. We have done it many times over. We just need to proceed to make sure that we are aware of the competition that exists around the globe. The United States is up to it; it is capable of competing; and this institution is also capable of making decisions and proceeding by working together. Trust me. That is what people are looking at around the world. Whether they are in Europe or Asia, they want to know whether we know how to get things done.

Let's show them that American innovation is here to stay; that it is the top of the game; and that we can compete with anyone given the right investments in STEM, job training, education, and in taking that ecosystem that is so unique and making an investment in it.

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