President Biden Signs Order to Implement Chip Funding

President Biden has signed an Executive Order to implement the semiconductor funding in the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022.

This legislation will lower the costs of goods, create high paying manufacturing jobs around the country, and ensure we make more critical technologies at home. This law builds on more than a year of work from the Biden-Harris Administration to respond to acute semiconductor shortages and build more resilient semiconductor supply chains.

The historic funding and incentives in the CHIPS Act will help rebuild our supply chains, manufacturing, and infrastructure here at home, along with crucial invests from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act.

This Executive Order reflects the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to quickly increase production of semiconductors, strengthen research and design leadership, and grow a diverse semiconductor workforce to give the country a competitive edge on the world stage.

Additionally, to ensure transparent and effective communication about CHIPS Act programs, the Department of Commerce launched CHIPS.gov, a central resource for stakeholders and interested parties on the $50 billion in manufacturing and research and development funds available through the Department of Commerce.

CHIPS Implementation Steering Council

To coordinate effective implementation of the CHIPS Act across the Administration, the Executive Order establishes an interagency CHIPS Implementation Steering Council. The Steering Council will be co-chaired by National Economic Director Brian Deese, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and the Acting Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Alondra Nelson. Other members of the Steering Council will include:

Department of State, Secretary Antony Blinken
Department of Treasury, Secretary Janet Yellen
Department of Defense, Secretary Lloyd Austin
Department of Commerce, Secretary Gina Raimondo
Department of Labor, Secretary Marty Walsh
Department of Energy, Secretary Jennifer Granholm
White House Office of Management and Budget, Director Shalanda Young
Small Business Administration, Administrator Isabel Guzman
Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Director Avril Haines
White House Domestic Policy Council, Director Susan Rice
White House Council of Economic Advisers, Chair Cecilia Rouse
White House Office of the National Cyber Director, Director Chris Inglis
National Science Foundation, Director Sethuraman Panchanathan

CHIPS Act Implementation Priorities

The Executive Order establishes six primary priorities to guide implementation across the federal government:

Protect taxpayer dollars. The CHIPS program will include rigorous review of applications along with robust compliance and accountability requirements to ensure taxpayer funds are protected and spent wisely.
Meet economic and national security needs. The CHIPS program must address economic and national security risks by building domestic capacity that reduces U.S. reliance on vulnerable or overly concentrated foreign production for both leading-edge and mature microelectronics, and increasing United States economic productivity and competitiveness. U.S. long-term economic and national security requires a sustainable, competitive domestic industry.

Ensure long-term leadership in the sector. The CHIPS program will establish a dynamic, collaborative network for semiconductor research and innovation to enable long-term U.S. leadership in the industries of the future. The program will support a diversity of technologies and applications along many stages of product and process development.

Strengthen and expand regional manufacturing and innovation clusters. Long-term competitiveness requires large economies of scale and investments across the supply chain. Regional clusters containing manufacturing facilities, suppliers, basic and translational research, and workforce programs, along with supporting infrastructure, will be the foundation for a competitive industry. The CHIPS program will facilitate the expansion, creation and coordination of semiconductor manufacturing and innovation clusters that benefit many companies.

Catalyze private sector investment. A successful CHIPS program will respond to market signals, fill market gaps and reduce investment risk to attract significant private capital. The role of government in the CHIPS program is to shift financial incentives to maximize large-scale private investment in production, break-through technologies, and workers. The CHIPS program will encourage new ecosystem partnerships that reduce risk, build on U.S. strengths, and facilitate such investments.

Generate benefits for a broad range of stakeholders and communities. A successful CHIPS program will create benefits for startups, workers, socially and economically disadvantaged (SEDI) businesses, including minority-owned, veteran-owned and women-owned businesses and rural businesses, universities and colleges, and state and local economies, in addition to supporting semiconductor companies. The CHIPS program will encourage linkages to underserved regions and populations to draw in new participants to the semiconductor ecosystem.

CHIPS.gov

The Department of Commerce has launched CHIPS.gov, which will be an essential channel through which the Department communicates with the public about CHIPS Program initiatives. The Department of Commerce is committed to deploying funding as swiftly as possible, while also ensuring the time needed to perform necessary due diligence. CHIPS.gov will be a central resource for all information related to the implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act, and will provide information about Departmental priorities, funding opportunities, timelines, requirements and more as the information becomes available.