House Passes America COMPETES Act

Last week, the U.S. House passed the America COMPETES Act, a wide-ranging legislative package that would provide billions of dollars to support semiconductors, supply chains, scientific research, and other initiatives designed to increase U.S. competitiveness with China. The bill passed in a 222-210 vote among significant Republican opposition over the inclusion of some Democratic priorities focused on climate and other partisan policies. The Senate passed their own bipartisan China competition bill in June of last year, the United States Innovation and Competition Act (USICA). Lawmakers will now move to form a conference committee to negotiate a compromise bill that can gain enough support to pass both chambers, a process that could take months.

The China competition bills contain provisions that would significantly impact the U.S. supply chain. The House-passed legislative package included H.R.4996, the Ocean Shipping Reform Act, legislation IWLA previously endorsed that would overhaul federal maritime shipping laws and reform demurrage and detention issues. The bills also include billions of dollars in funding to support supply chain resilience and to establish a new office within the Commerce Department to map, monitor, and model supply chains and conduct stress tests of critical industries to identify high-priority gaps and vulnerabilities. IWLA will monitor developments related to the conference legislation produced by the yet to be formed joint committee.

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