U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with UAW leaders, including President Ray Curry, and Democratic House members from Michigan as well as Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist Friday at a union hall in Taylor to discuss the impact of the semiconductor shortage on autoworkers and Pelosi’s expectation that long-stalled legislation to address the issue is close to passage.
The so-called CHIPS Act would direct more than $50 billion toward incentivizing domestic production of chips for use in a host of consumer products, including automobiles, and Pelosi said she’s looking for the Senate to wrap up its work possibly by midweek. Then the House would be able to move the bill soon after to the president’s desk, she indicated.
“This is a national security issue. … This is an all-American patriotic issue, and we have to make sure that it’s done right,” Pelosi said, noting that there would be guardrails to make sure the funding is handled properly and not used by industry for things like stock buybacks and investing overseas.
UAW local presidents representing Detroit Three facilities, along with workers at one supplier, said the chip shortage has led to plant layoffs and kept people from being able to purchase the vehicles they need. It’s also sent vehicle prices skyrocketing and helped accelerate inflation, which is hurting people across the economy, they said.
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The meeting echoed some of the points from a similar roundtable at the same location in November, when Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo were on hand. At that meeting, Raimondo noted that decades ago the U.S. produced almost 40% of the world’s supply of chips and now produces about 12%.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, called the issue a “matter of economic security” as well as national security, saying that because of the length of time it’s taken to make progress on the issue, suppliers are being told by automakers to build chip plants outside the United States if it doesn’t get resolved.
Curry, the UAW president, said “1.7 million cars were not built due to the shortage of semiconductor chips last year alone,” noting that no auto-grade semiconductor chips are currently made in the United States.
Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @_ericdlawrence. Become a subscriber.