The House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday that focuses on boosting the production of semiconductors in the United States.
The bill, which passed in the Senate on Wednesday, is a long-awaited $280 billion legislative package with broad bipartisan support overall, but with some lawmakers coming out against the bill this week.
The legislative package passed the House with a vote of 243-187, which was closer than had been anticipated by leadership in Congress.
It now heads to the desk of President Joe Biden to be signed into law. It is expected to inject nearly $300 billion into the American manufacturing industry and boost scientific research.
As Axios points out, the hope is that the bill can pump enough support into manufacturing essential computer chips in the U.S. to try and prevent another supply chain crisis, while making the U.S. more competitive with China.
Florida Sen. Rick Scott expressed opposition to the bill on Wednesday, telling CNN if the bill "really did what they talked about if it really did say oh, we're going to make sure we build chips here, the chips we need, it was, I would be all in. That's not what this bill did."
Sen. Scott said, "First off, It's $280 billion, a massive giveaway to multi-billion dollar corporations. Let me give you an example. Intel corporation, let me tell you how it impacts them. They are going to get, I think $4 billion, all right. On top of $4 billion to build a plant, they get a $4 billion tax write-off and they get a 25% tax credit. They get all that. What do they have to do? There's no obligation that they build a specific chip that we need. There's no quotas. There's no standards. You know, they're a big investor in china. They can continue to invest in China. They can continue to expand in china. When China invades Taiwan, which I hope they don't, they can continue to do business in china, which they said they would."
