Source: United States Senator for Commonwealth of Virginia Mark R Warner
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WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and one of the Senators tasked with negotiating the U.S. jobs and competitiveness package, delivered opening remarks at the first meeting of the congressional conference committee.
“We’ve seen America’s supply of semiconductors fall from about 33 percent of manufacturing down to single digits. We’ve almost seen the exact converse take place in terms of China’s investments,” Chairman Warner said in his opening statement. “My fear is that what we are seeing in semiconductors and the need for us to make investments, we may need similar types of approaches in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, synthetic biology. We need to maintain America and the West’s leadership in cutting-edge technologies.”
In April, Chairman Warner was selected to serve on the conference committee of Senators and House members working to reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions of the jobs and competitiveness bill. This bill has been known variously as the Bipartisan Innovation Act, America COMPETES Act, the United States Innovation and Competition Act, and the Endless Frontier Act.
Once the conference committee comes to an agreement on a final version of the bill, the House and Senate will each vote on whether to send that bill to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
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