WASHINGTON (WCMH) — President Joe Biden has confirmed Wednesday that he will sign the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which Intel expects to provide a major boost to its coming plant in Ohio.
The president sent a notice that he would sign H.R. 4346 into law on Tuesday. Biden plans to handle the signing in the White House’s Rose Garden, making a press event out of it where he’ll give additional comments.
The CHIPS Act has taken many forms in different bills since its inception in 2021, but this is the first time it has made it to the president’s desk. After passing both sides of the U.S. Congress at the end of July, the legislation in its current form provides $52 billion in incentives and tax credits for semiconductor chip makers like Intel. The silicon giant already planned to spend around $20 billion to build a semiconductor fabrication plant in New Albany, but would get an additional funding boost from CHIPS.
Biden mentioned his understanding of the bill’s benefits after it passed in Congress, when he first said that he looked forward to signing it.
“By making more semiconductors in the United States, this bill will increase domestic manufacturing and lower costs for families,’ Biden said. “And, it will strengthen our national security by making us less dependent on foreign sources of semiconductors.”
The CHIPS Act was introduced as a stitch in the United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021, then stripped out as its own piece of legislation in hopes of finding better bipartisan support, then added to H.R. 4346 acting as an unrelated “legislative vehicle” most recently. Intel, Biden and numerous Ohio politicians have pushed for the passage of CHIPS, and the company’s CEO Pat Gelsinger expressed his happiness when the legislation finally passed.
“Congress has done its part, and now we are going to do ours,” Gelsinger said. “I’m excited to put shovels in the ground as Intel moves full speed ahead to start building in Ohio.”
In June, Intel Corporation announced it would delay the groundbreaking ceremony for the Ohio plant because the CHIPS Act was stalled in Congress. When NBC4 asked if a new groundbreaking ceremony date would be set with CHIPS clearing the Senate, Intel’s Linda Qian said there was no date set yet. However, in a confident move at the beginning of July, Intel sent construction crews to begin early work at the New Albany site anyway.
