WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) released the following statement after filing an amendment to the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act last week to remove the political, unnecessary Davis-Bacon provisions added during the committee process that are jeopardizing the funding for his Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act. You can view text of the amendment here.
“The strong support for this legislation on a bipartisan basis shows that this is a priority for a majority of the members of this body. There’s no reason these funding programs shouldn’t be bipartisan, too.”
“And we’re already seeing divisions about provisions related to the payment of prevailing wage, so-called Davis-Bacon provisions, which is frankly dividing us, which is a moot issue given the current wages of U.S. semiconductor manufacturing companies. It’s a non-issue for them, yet some of our Democratic colleagues decided to insert this divisive issue in this underlying Endless Frontier bill.”
“I’m committed to securing funding to bolster our domestic semiconductor manufacturing and there have been a lot of conversations about the most effective way to do so, but let me be clear, these Davis-Bacon provisions inserted into the committee markup in the Endless Frontiers bill is jeopardizing this funding.