Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2022

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I regret that we find ourselves in this position of being divided on this bill. This, like every piece of legislation we pass, is not perfect. And very frankly, if we made a judgment on every piece of legislation that we considered that I don't like some other bill, we would be in real trouble. And maybe we are in real trouble.

There was a manifesto put out by Xi and Putin when they met some months ago. Essentially what that manifesto said is the dictatorships, the authoritarian regimes are going to win because democracies cannot make decisions, they are too divided, they are too slow. This is what they were thinking about.

This is a good piece of legislation. It is not the piece of legislation that I would have written, but it is a good piece of legislation that does good things for America, and more importantly, good things for our competitive status in the world.

Mr. Speaker, the pandemic has taught us many lessons. One of those lessons, reinforced by Vladimir Putin's criminal war against Ukraine, is that we cannot and must not rely on the unreliable. Let me repeat that. America must not rely on the unreliable. We saw from the pandemic how reliable we were for so many things we needed to meet the crisis of the pandemic.

The minority leader, who told us all that he was going to urge all of his colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill, talked about inflation. One of the reasons we have inflation is because we have shortages. That is what drives prices up when demand is high and supply is low. You don't have to be an economist to get that lesson.

This bill seeks to address that issue because as we all know, chips are ubiquitous in almost everything that we have that has anything to do with electronics.

Every day, Americans see examples of why we must take steps to make our supply chains more secure and more reliable. This deals with that. Yet my Republican friends urge a ``no'' vote, not because they think this bill is bad--they may--but because they don't like another bill. That is what Xi and Putin are counting on. That is what the autocrats and authoritarians around the world are counting on, that democracies come to a halt. Because as democracies they debate and they differ, and they can't make decisions even when a significant number of the minority party is for this bill. One-third of the United States Senate Republicans voted for this bill because they thought it was good for competition between us and China and between us and everybody else.

That is why it is so sad for me to come here seeing this division on a partisan basis because of another bill. And so America, if we don't prevail on this bill, will see our competitive edge squandered because as the Secretary of Commerce says, there are a lot of countries that are going to put money on the table and say come to me. I am ready. You build your factory here. You build your chips here. And if America needs chips, if our manufacturers need chips, well, they can come to us. Not good. Good for Putin. Good for Xi. Not for us.

We must not rely on hostile foreign competitors to supply critical components that sustain America's manufacturing base. Chips are at the heart of that. That is what this bill is about. That is why we bellied up to the bar. That is why we are putting a lot of money on the table.

This is not the reconciliation bill. This is about America. It is not about Republicans or Democrats. This is about America, American workers, American competitiveness, American manufacturers, American technology.

I thank the chair for the extraordinary investment she has led in making our research and development compete with China in a way that we will win. And if we win, our workers and our people will win.

Microchips. In 2022, microchips are in nearly every product, as I said, from phones to cars to children's toys. At the same time, advanced semiconductors are becoming more and more integral to high- tech, advanced manufacturing processes, making them critical to our economy.

Yes, we can wait, maybe until tomorrow, maybe until January when the minority party takes over--so they think. Maybe we will wait until then. Or maybe that won't happen, and we will wait 24 months and Xi and Putin will be saying, hey, yeah, you go to it. They are lobbying against this bill. They are lobbying, paying to defeat this bill. Do not be their handmaiden.

America needs a unified Congress if it is going to compete. Indivisible, one Nation.

One of the best ways for us to ease inflation and bring costs down for American workers and consumers is to remove these supply pressures by making more of these critical components here in our country instead of relying on importing them from abroad. That is what we heard over and over and over again from the United States Senate.

We are making materials here at home, creating jobs, and streamlining our supply chains with this bill. This bipartisan legislation--17 Republicans, one-third of the United States Senate Republicans voted for this bill.

This bipartisan legislation, the CHIPS and Science Act, which will always be for me the Make It in America Act, represents the most significant investment in easing inflation and promoting American manufacturing and innovation that we have seen in a generation. This is a Make It in America bill. Every time I say that to an audience, no matter how red or conservative or how blue or how liberal, they all shake their head, yes, we need to make it in America. That is what this bill is about.

While it is not as broad as I and others in the House had hoped for, the bill, nevertheless, achieves so many of our goals. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth and say no. It makes good on promises that our majority made to the American people to govern responsibly and build a post-pandemic economy that works better for more Americans. But this was a bill that was fashioned in a bipartisan way.

Nobody said at the time, well, it will be for this bill if we like every one of the bills you are supporting--what a negative way to perceive legislation to approach how you vote.

This legislation contains substantial new investment in science, research, and innovation--again, thank you, Eddie Bernice Johnson-- which will help us maintain our competitive edge, commercialize new discoveries, and train our workforce to succeed in the global economy.

The investments we are making in this legislation are not only a major victory for American businesses and workers; they achieve a big part of the Make It In America plan, which I have talked about since 2010. That is, making supply chains more resilient.

When we make microchips and semiconductors in America, more of our workers and entrepreneurs will surely ``make it'' in America.

Across America, we are now observing Made in America Week. Isn't that ironic? This is Made in America Week, yet we have a bill on the floor which invests in making it in America. The minority leader said on this floor: I am urging all of my Republican colleagues to vote ``no.'' Surely not because they are against making it in America but because they don't like some other bill, and they are going to stamp their feet and have a tantrum about the other bill.

This legislation now truly looks forward in ensuring that our workers and businesses will continue having opportunities to make it in America long into the future. This is not about today. It is not about tomorrow. It is about the next year, the next 10 years, the next generation. That is what this bill is about.

I plead with my colleagues, don't reject this bill based on a political perception of it.

Mr. Speaker, I again thank Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson for her leadership on the House's similar legislation, as well as all the Members who had policies that were incorporated into this bill.

Today, we have a chance to deliver our promise to enact a major priority from President Biden's economic agenda, and I would suggest a major economic agenda of Republicans in the United States Senate, as articulated by the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. I hope some across the aisle will still vote for this bill as their Republican colleagues in the Senate did and as they had signaled they would do for a long time.

The politics changed, but the challenge we have has not, and the reality has not. Let us not lose this opportunity. It is disappointing that some in this House have decided to whip against this bill because of its leadership's opposition to the agreement announced yesterday in the Senate to move forward with the Inflation Reduction Act. Whether you like that bill or not, do not pay the price of this bill. Do not pay the price of setting our competition with others aside.

One would hope that all of us would be both for investment in American competitiveness and for reducing inflation and the deficit. Sadly, that seems not to be the case. Nevertheless, I hope we will have a bipartisan vote today on this bill.

Let's come together to make our supply chain stronger, protect our national security, invest in our innovation-driven economy, and advantage American workers so they can make it in America.

Mr. Speaker, I say to my colleagues: We talk about the loyal opposition. The loyal opposition need not be loyal to the other party. It does need to be loyal to the country.

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