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Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

US Senate Passes $280 Billion CHIPS Act for Domestic Semiconductors

Thursday, July 28, 2022

Categories: ASCF News National Preparedness

Comments: 0

Source: https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-senate-passes-280-billion-chips-act-for-domestic-semiconductors_4625931.html

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, (D-N.Y.), speaks alongside a bipartisan group of senators, including (L-R) Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) following the passage of the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act on July 27, 2022 in Washington (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

The U.S. Senate has approved a measure designed to encourage more companies to build semiconductor plants in the United States.

The legislation, which passed on a 64–33 vote on July 27, would provide $280 billion in funding to prop up and kickstart domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research; the price tag is far above previous legislation that aimed to provide just $52 billion to manufacturers. The bill now moves to the House for debate.

Officially dubbed the CHIPS [Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America] Act of 2022, the measure would provide tens of billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks to technology corporations in an effort to spur new market growth, as well as funding for government-backed tech research.

Proponents of the legislation have long said that it’s necessary in order to maintain a competitive edge with China, which is pouring money into its own domestic chip production.

At the last minute, however, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) stripped a provision that would have blocked manufacturers from using technology developed with funding from outsourcing production to China. As a result, firms will be able to domestically research and create new semiconductor technologies using taxpayer funds, then outsource the manufacturing of those semiconductors to China.

Critics from both sides of the aisle, including Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), criticized the legislation as a corporate handout that will increase inflation and hurt U.S. taxpayers.

“Bernie Sanders and I almost never agree but he is right about so-called CHIPS bill,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote on Twitter. “It’s just a huge govt handout to massive [and] already-profitable companies. Why would we spend more taxpayer dollars for unnecessary corporate welfare?”

Semiconductors, which are used in the production of everything from personal computers to hypersonic missiles, have become a key point of anxiety over the past two years as a global supply chain crisis has wreaked havoc on the United States’ ability to obtain the chips.

The new CHIPS Act follows a version of the measure that was approved in January 2021. Since then, Democrats and Republicans have failed to reach an agreement on how to appropriate funding for the initiative, with Republicans pushing for new corporate tax credits and Democrats pushing for green energy and research funding to be included.

That stalemate led to the creation of two stalled pieces of legislation, the Republican-backed U.S. Innovation and Competition Act and the Democratic-backed America COMPETES Act, which were combined into the new CHIPS Act of 2022.

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