Building Chips in America Act of 2023

Floor Speech

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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to S. 2228, the so-called Building Chips in America Act.

This bill simply should not be coming up under a suspension of the rules. All three ranking members of the committees of jurisdiction are adamantly opposed to it.

When the CHIPS and Science Act passed the House in July of 2022, it passed by a vote of 243-187. All 187 votes against the bill were Republicans.

In fact, only 24 Republicans voted for the bill, and a lot of them are no longer here. If Republicans had controlled the House last Congress, the $52 billion that we invested to ensure semiconductors were produced here in the United States instead of China simply would have never become law.

I was one of the leaders who pushed the CHIPS and Science Act through the House, and so I, unlike many of my Republican colleagues, am invested in making this program work as intended.

As we created this program, we did so with the intention of ending our reliance on other countries for microchips that are used in automobiles, consumer electronics, and washing machines. We did all this while also making sure we protected the environment.

The CHIPS and Science Act is a success, but we cannot deflect from that success by once again attacking one of the most important environmental laws that protects all of our communities from corporate malfeasance.

I oppose this bill because it would needlessly eliminate environmental review and public input under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, for semiconductor facilities receiving funding under the CHIPS and Science Act.

Now, this bill simply is not necessary because NEPA review is not a barrier to moving semiconductor projects forward.

Commerce Secretary Raimondo, who oversees the CHIPS and Science Act, and who had initially voiced concern about NEPA reviews, acknowledged at an Energy and Commerce hearing: I can report to you today that we have made a lot of progress on that, and we are on track to complete environmental reviews for all these companies before we issue any awards.

There is simply no need for wholesale exemptions from NEPA reviews, given the steps that Congress has already taken to increase the speed, efficiency, and management of permitting for this industry.

We made semiconductor manufacturing eligible for the abbreviated permitting process under the FAST-41 Act. This ensured that reviews do not drag out for the most serious environmental impact statements.

We also, under the Fiscal Responsibility Act, eliminated NEPA review for loans, loan guarantees, or other forms of financial assistance for similar activities, and we gave the Department of Commerce the ability to adopt categorical exclusions from other agencies.

This is really, Mr. Speaker, a bill that is a solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist.

Now Republican leadership is bypassing regular order to ram through an anti-environment bill that didn't go through any of the committees here in the House before being rushed to the House floor on the suspension calendar.

The phenomenal work of the CHIPS Program Office is a cause for celebration, and the program has produced critical wins for countless domestic industries worth highlighting.

It is clear that NEPA reviews are not a barrier to moving these projects forward. Fundamentally, NEPA requires us to look before we leap, which is just common sense, and failing to do so could create many new problems for our environment.

My colleague mentioned the Superfund sites in Silicon Valley. Do we want those again?

This affects our water supply, our worker safety, and our communities, and ignoring these impacts is not going to make them disappear, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge all of my colleagues to vote ``no''.

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