The bill
Securing Semiconductor Supply Chains Act
S. 97, 119th Congress — read as touching Semiconductors & Hardware.
Sponsored by
Sen. Peters, Gary C. [D-MI]
ID: P000595
Follow the money
The bill
S. 97, 119th Congress — read as touching Semiconductors & Hardware.
The sponsor
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
30 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
This bill's text tracks the "Department of Commerce" section, p. 702-704 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Held at the desk.
May 25, 2025
📍 Current Status
Next: The bill will be reviewed by relevant committees who will debate, amend, and vote on it.
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, folks! The Securing Semiconductor Supply Chains Act (S 97) - because what's more thrilling than a bill about semiconductors? Let me put on my surgical gloves and dissect this mess.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The main purpose is to create the illusion that Congress cares about securing semiconductor supply chains. In reality, it's just a thinly veiled attempt to funnel foreign direct investment into the pockets of select corporations and State-level economic development organizations. The objective? To make it seem like they're doing something about the "complex" global supply chain while actually accomplishing nothing.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** Section 4 is where the magic happens - or rather, doesn't happen. SelectUSA will "coordinate" with State-level economic development organizations to increase foreign direct investment in semiconductor-related manufacturing and production. Wow, what a bold move! They'll also submit a report in two years that will likely gather dust on some bureaucrat's shelf.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects: corporations looking for handouts, State-level economic development organizations seeking more funding, and politicians eager to claim they're "doing something" about the economy. Meanwhile, actual workers and consumers will be left in the dark, wondering what this bill actually accomplishes.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. It won't address the real issues plaguing the semiconductor industry, such as lack of investment in domestic manufacturing or the stranglehold of monopolies. Instead, it'll create more bureaucratic red tape and opportunities for crony capitalism. The only ones who will benefit are those with connections to the politicians sponsoring this bill.
In short, S 97 is a masterclass in legislative obfuscation, designed to confuse voters while enriching special interests. It's a disease masquerading as medicine - and I'm not buying it.
Sen. Peters, Gary C. [D-MI]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No PAC contributions found
No committee contributions found
This bill has 2 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
ID: B001243
Top Contributors
26
ID: S001217
Top Contributors
22
Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 52 nodes and 74 connections
Total contributions: $74
Showing top 18 donors by contribution amount
Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 1 helped.
Section 4 and 5 require SelectUSA to coordinate with state-level economic development organizations to increase foreign direct investment in semiconductor-related manufacturing and production, which directly benefits the semiconductor industry by promoting investment in fabrication, advanced packaging, and materials/equipment.
For each industry this bill affects, here's what the sponsor (Sen. Peters, Gary C. [D-MI])received from donors associated with that industry during the 2022–present cycles. Donations are not proof of intent — they are a record of who funds the people writing the law.
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.AI-enhanced analysis provides detailed alignment ratings.
AI Analysis:
"The bill directly uses SelectUSA to attract foreign direct investment in semiconductor manufacturing, aligning with Project 2025's goal of leveraging SelectUSA to reshore production, strengthen critical supply chains (especially semiconductors), and reduce reliance on adversaries like China."
— 670 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Strategic decoupling from China; l Defense industrial base strength; l Critical supply chains (e.g., pharmaceuticals, medical devices, food); and l Emerging technologies (e.g., rare earth minerals, semiconductors, batteries, artificial intelligence, quantum computing). Global Markets and the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service. For more than a decade, strategic planning at Global Markets (GM) and the U.S. and For- eign Commercial Service (CS) has been consistently undermined by increased costs associated with overseas staff and flat or reduced budgets. The Trump Administration introduced crucial, long-overdue business practices such as the implementation of software to manage and track workflow, but a further strategic overhaul of resource allocation is needed to set GM and the CS on a firm footing. Currently, CS manages staff spread over 106 domestic offices in 77 countries around the world. Abroad, several “partner posts” utilize interagency staff and regionally located CS officials to offer services without a permanent physical in-country CS presence. Given the rapidly rising costs imposed by the State Depart- ment on CS posts overseas, a drastic expansion of this model is likely needed. CS resources should be distributed according to the following set of priorities: l Value in countering the malign influence of adversaries, particularly China; l Value in fostering U.S. innovation; l Value in maintaining access to critical supply chains and technology; l Difficulty for U.S. companies in gaining market access without CS involvement; and l Potential untapped export market size and likelihood of expansion. Ultimately, difficult decisions must be made about the value of CS posts and whether individual posts can be justified given current resources and the above criteria. If the State Department deems the diplomatic value of a permanent in-country CS post to be vital to the national interest, then State should bear more of the cost of maintaining that post. Global Markets should also consolidate and elevate the Advocacy Center and SelectUSA as relatively low-cost tools to drive large-scale export transactions — 671 — Department of Commerce and foreign direct investment (FDI). SelectUSA is a low-cost and effective tool in attracting FDI to the U.S. and to re-shore manufacturing and research and devel- opment. In a world in which corruption is rampant, these are among the most effective tools in leveling the playing field for U.S. communities and companies seeking to engage with governments and potential overseas investors. Given the value placed on senior-level engagement by many governments and companies, this consolidated Office of Trade and Investment Advocacy should be headed by a Deputy Assistant Secretary. The new office should also seek congres- sional authorization to utilize its FDI-promotion tools to encourage reshoring by U.S. businesses. BUREAU OF INDUSTRY AND SECURITY During the past two decades, technology transfer from America and its allies has helped accelerate adversaries’ technological and weapons capabilities. This tech- nology transfer on a massive scale has occurred because of adversaries’ exploitation of the U.S.’s open economy and education system through both commercial trans- actions and university and government research programs. Examples include the People’s Republic of China’s dramatic leaps forward in semiconductor design and fabrication, battery energy storage, nuclear weapons capabilities, artificial intel- ligence, space and aerospace engineering, and hypersonic weapons deployment. At the same time, the U.S. has systematically failed to protect critical assets. Rather than promulgate policies to better prevent technology transfer, the U.S. government has either ignored the problem or, worse, from 2008 through 2016 instituted a government-wide “Export Control Reform” process to loosen the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) governing exports of dual-use items to facilitate technology transfer to adversaries, either directly or indirectly through third-country transfers. Those reforms still present in the Department of Commerce’s EAR must be reversed. The United States needs stronger rules to protect technology transfer to adversaries while promoting technology integration and interoperability with allies. Further, U.S. export control regulations should be utilized to prevent theft of personally identifiable information and to encourage U.S. companies to shift production out of China and further diversify their supply chains to better advance U.S. national security interests. For all the below recommendations, BIS needs to move unilaterally while it works with allies to implement complementary export control policies. Waiting to act until allies are ready to move in lockstep is not an option while America’s national security is at risk. Emerging and Foundational Technologies. The Export Control Reform Act of 2018 (ECRA) gave BIS permanent statutory authority to regulate exports of dual-use items (goods, software, and technology). ECRA also mandated that BIS
AI Analysis:
"The bill aligns with Project 2025's goal of reducing U.S. dependence on Communist Chinese supply chains by promoting domestic semiconductor manufacturing through foreign direct investment, thereby enhancing supply chain resilience and national security."
— 790 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Systematically reduce and eventually eliminate any U.S. dependence on Communist Chinese supply chains that may be used to threaten national security such as medicines, silicon chips, rare earth minerals, computer motherboards, flatscreen displays, and military components. l Sanction any companies, including American companies like Apple, that facilitate Communist China’s use of its Great Firewall surveillance and censorship capabilities. l Order the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice to contract with U.S.-owned and U.S.-operated artificial intelligence companies that are capable of detecting, identifying, and disrupting both the domestic groups’ and CCP influencers’ social media operations and funding streams using public information as a rapidly available offensive measure. l Reinvigorate and expand the DHS crackdown on the CCP’s use of e-sellers (including third-party sellers) and the shippers and operators of major warehouses such as Amazon, eBay, and Alibaba to flood U.S. markets with counterfeit and pirated goods. l Compel the closure of all Confucius Institutes in the U.S., which serve as propaganda arms of the CCP. l Significantly reduce or eliminate the issuance of visas to Chinese students or researchers to prevent espionage and information harvesting. l Hold the CCP accountable for the COVID-19 virus, which almost certainly originated as a genetically engineered virus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and do so through the establishment of a presidential commission or select congressional committee that would investigate the origins of the virus; its various costs, both economically and in human life; and the possible means of collecting damages from the CCP, which are likely to rise to the trillions of dollars. If the new U.S. President wishes to defend this country against the serious exis- tential threat posed by Communist China, that President will adopt all of these proposals through the requisite presidential executive orders or memoranda. Effective Trade Policy in the Real World. To conclude this analysis, it is useful to offer brief reflections on a number of key obstacles to implementing the policy initiatives recommended in this chapter. These obstacles include: — 791 — Trade l The dogma of the Ricardian free-trade model, which has been used as propaganda to thwart the adoption of measures that seek to level the global trading field for American manufacturers, farmers, ranchers, and workers; l The politics of trade policy, which has led to a great divide that makes trade policy reforms difficult to implement; l The economics of trade deficits, which are not adequately understood either by the American public or by the policymaking intelligentsia; and l The crucial role of supportive White House and Administration personnel in implementing effective trade policies. The Dogma of Free Trade. Clearly, the fair and balanced trade orientation of this chapter runs starkly against the free trade grain of the globalist Ricardian orthodoxy, which is predicated on the theory that free trade represents the best path by which to achieve both American and global prosperity. This orthodoxy is based on the ivory tower academic conclusion that if countries trade freely among each other, each will pursue its own comparative advantages; production will be most efficient around the world; the economic pie will be bigger both for the globe and for each free trading country; and (so long as workers who lose their jobs are fairly compensated from the gains from trade) everyone will be better off. The most obvious problem with this orthodoxy (there are many more) is that nowhere is Ricardian free trade mirrored in the real world. Instead, America trades in a world where the WTO’s MFN rules are stacked against us, scofflaws like Communist China run roughshod over what meager WTO rules there are, and the United States among all of the world’s developed nations is the biggest victim of the free trade Ricardian orthodoxy. During his first term, President Donald Trump preached that there can be no free trade without fair, reciprocal, and balanced trade. He was right then, and who- ever is the next President in 2025 should heed this critical principle whenever the flag of free trade is waved to prevent the adoption of needed reforms. The Politics of Trade Policy: Who Benefits? Today, there is a great divide among Americans that stands in the way of constructive trade policy reforms. This great divide is certainly not about a partisan desire for low taxes and a reduced regulatory burden. Rather, it is over whether our borders should be open or secure and whether it is prudent to offshore our manufacturing and defense industrial base and associated supply chains. Those who support secure borders and seek to onshore more of American pro- duction and supply chains do so to boost the real wages of American workers and to
AI Analysis:
"The bill aligns strongly with Project 2025's focus on strengthening critical supply chains, particularly semiconductors, and enhancing economic resilience against strategic competitors like China. Both emphasize securing domestic production capabilities in key technologies to support national security and industrial base strength."
— 669 — Department of Commerce l Develop a new methodology to determine normal values in Chinese anti- dumping cases because—given China’s size, economic might, and state intervention in the economy—there is no comparable surrogate country to use as a proxy for production costs. In addition to these changes, continued support for steel and aluminum market analysis and import monitoring remains crucial to the U.S. defense industrial base and the health of global manufacturing. Without these functions, it is difficult to address massive subsidization, overcapacity, and dumping by China. Industry and Analysis. Industry and Analysis (I&A) consists of a team of econ- omists and industry experts that provides important analysis to partners across the government, including the White House and USTR, as well as the public. As the Department of Commerce’s Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) lead, I&A performs crucial work to ensure that the proper economic impact/supply chain analysis is brought to national security risk assess- ments. This analysis is needed for CFIUS to be an effective tool in preventing China and other adversaries from exploiting the U.S.’s open investment climate. I&A also provides impact assessments and economic modeling for policy options under Administration consideration; plays a critical role in identifying trade barriers and providing industry-specific expertise for USTR during free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations; and does indispensable work ensuring cross-bor- der data flows, particularly with Europe, remain open and relatively unrestricted. However, outside of these functions, implementation of I&A’s mission as an intellectual engine for U.S. trade and investment policy can often lack energy and focus. For instance, the Top Market Reports that represent a large volume of I&A work do not serve a specific strategic function and could be better replaced by industry competitiveness assessments in critical sectors of the economy. Strong and capable leadership is needed in I&A to ensure Administration pri- orities permeate the organization and that staff support Administration priorities. I&A produces a mandatory report to Congress regarding the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, which focuses solely on U.S. capacity in the goods being considered for tariff exclusions and does not include highly relevant information on capacity among FTA partners and close allies. The resulting final report has thus been used to lobby for tariff reductions on thousands of imports from China without concern for any other factors. This lack of priority given to FTA partners is troubling. Going forward, I&A should be permanently restructured to perform supply-chain analysis on an ongoing basis for the U.S. government, identifying potential vulner- abilities like those exposed by the pandemic and resulting shortages in everything from semiconductors to baby formula. Furthermore, permanent standing teams should be established and staffed by properly aligned political appointees and trusted career staff to analyze and spur action on the following priority policy issues: — 670 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Strategic decoupling from China; l Defense industrial base strength; l Critical supply chains (e.g., pharmaceuticals, medical devices, food); and l Emerging technologies (e.g., rare earth minerals, semiconductors, batteries, artificial intelligence, quantum computing). Global Markets and the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service. For more than a decade, strategic planning at Global Markets (GM) and the U.S. and For- eign Commercial Service (CS) has been consistently undermined by increased costs associated with overseas staff and flat or reduced budgets. The Trump Administration introduced crucial, long-overdue business practices such as the implementation of software to manage and track workflow, but a further strategic overhaul of resource allocation is needed to set GM and the CS on a firm footing. Currently, CS manages staff spread over 106 domestic offices in 77 countries around the world. Abroad, several “partner posts” utilize interagency staff and regionally located CS officials to offer services without a permanent physical in-country CS presence. Given the rapidly rising costs imposed by the State Depart- ment on CS posts overseas, a drastic expansion of this model is likely needed. CS resources should be distributed according to the following set of priorities: l Value in countering the malign influence of adversaries, particularly China; l Value in fostering U.S. innovation; l Value in maintaining access to critical supply chains and technology; l Difficulty for U.S. companies in gaining market access without CS involvement; and l Potential untapped export market size and likelihood of expansion. Ultimately, difficult decisions must be made about the value of CS posts and whether individual posts can be justified given current resources and the above criteria. If the State Department deems the diplomatic value of a permanent in-country CS post to be vital to the national interest, then State should bear more of the cost of maintaining that post. Global Markets should also consolidate and elevate the Advocacy Center and SelectUSA as relatively low-cost tools to drive large-scale export transactions
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
Policy matches are calculated using a hybrid approach: initial candidates are found using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text, then an AI model (Llama 3.1 70B) provides detailed alignment ratings and analysis. Ratings range from 1 (minimal alignment) to 5 (very strong alignment). This analysis does not imply direct causation or intent.