A federal program intended to reduce American reliance on Communist Chinese-produced computer chips is instead being used to coerce companies to adopt radical left-wing social policies.
U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and more than a dozen other Senate Republicans have demanded Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and President Joe Biden to strike a number of left-wing social and political demands companies must agree to in order to receive funds from the $39 billion CHIPS Act, a bill enacted last year to boot U.S. semiconductor manufacturing.
U.S. companies are ineligible for the program unless they agree to “Green New Deal mandates, mandates for cradle-to-grave ‘wraparound' services for employees, subsidized housing and transportation for employees, discrimination in hiring practices against non-union workers and ‘economically disadvantaged individuals,' and government seizure of ‘excess' profits,” Cruz reports.
“The CHIPS Act was passed by Congress for the purpose of reversing the decline of the domestic semiconductor industry. It is apparent…that the Commerce Department intends to repurpose the CHIPS program and circumvent Congress. We urge the Department to reverse these superfluous and partisan provisions in the NOFO immediately,” Cruz and senators write in a letter to Raimondo.
“Many of the grant criteria detailed in your Department's recent Notice of Funding Opportunity (“NOFO”) will have the opposite effect of Congress's intent with enactment of the CHIPS Act and instead make domestic chip production more expensive, less competitive, and reliant on taxpayer subsidies over private investment,” the senators write.
“Furthermore, your Department has included in the NOFO extraneous environmental-social governance (ESG) requirements that seek to enact progressive policies that had been previously rejected by Congress,” they add. “These policies include liberal wish list items, many of which were removed from the White House's ‘Build Back Better” major spending package… because they did not have the votes to pass at even a simple majority in the Senate. To claim that these provisions are integral to the “national security mission” of the CHIPS Act and will ‘[result] in lower costs' defies reason.”
Sen. Cruz was joined by more than a dozen Senate Republican colleagues: Sens. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., Mike Lee, R-Utah, Deb Fischer, R-Neb., Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Mike Braun, R-Ind., Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., Rick Scott, R-Fla., Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., Ted Budd, R-N.C., and Eric Schmitt, R-Mo.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
READ NEXT: Report: Trump Is Facing 34 Criminal Counts
NO & wrong
Arrest this Treasonous Traitor Immediately including all involved his family his administration Treasonous Traitor’s
Biden nor his agency heads should be able add conditions to laws passed by Congress. This woke policy focus does not recognize meritocracy and will bring America down over time. We will look like the failed countries in most of the world that rely on us for their freedom from Russia/China and others seeking domination.
Yeah, well, and who’s gonna save Brandon from China??
clearly everything brandon is doing benefits China and Russia. so why would HE and HIS family need savings from China.