Biden's Advanced Technology Legacy Unraveling Prior to Election Day
The $39 billion high-tech subsidy initiative was intended to be accompanied by protective measures. However, progressives are concerned that these safeguards are disappearing right before them.
TroibNews 
Progressives and pro-labor Democrats are becoming increasingly disillusioned with President Joe Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act as the administration appears to be relaxing some of the initial environmental and transparency protections linked to its $39 billion in subsidies.
The 2022 legislation is a landmark instance of industrial policy aimed at strengthening the American high-tech sector by investing in semiconductor manufacturing. To garner support from fellow Democrats, the Biden administration assured a comprehensive suite of environmental regulations, employee benefits, and public accountability measures would be included.
However, in early October, Biden signed a law that rolled back a vital environmental review requirement that companies were expected to meet. The first significant award given under the act — $123 million to Polar Semiconductor in Minnesota — was issued with sealed terms, raising concerns among initial backers that tech firms might benefit without adequate public scrutiny.
In light of former President Donald Trump's recent criticisms of the CHIPS program, the administration faces the prospect of opposition from a potential future president who might fundamentally alter the law’s implementation. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson stated on Friday that if Trump wins and Republicans regain control of Congress, they may attempt to remove the law's elements unfavorable to the industry.
This criticism from both sides of the political spectrum prompts questions about the future of one of the president's key long-term legislative achievements.
“Whatever the administration does, it’ll be inadequate,” remarked Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and former top Treasury official, predicting significant "blowback" from all directions as the law progresses.
The evolution of the CHIPS Act illustrates the challenges inherent in developing a major industry-supporting policy. The Biden administration is trying to reconcile rapid business execution with an intricate array of political and policy goals, seemingly leaving all parties dissatisfied. As a result, officials are finding it challenging to fulfill their promises to deliver clear public outcomes, which creates a gap between their articulated vision and the practical realities.
“We have two very different visions of what we believe an American investment into an industry should meet,” said Rep. Donald Norcross, co-chair of the Labor Caucus, referencing the clash between industry priorities and Democratic objectives.
Among Democrats, backlash is already evident. Norcross and three fellow Democratic Labor Caucus leaders expressed discontent in a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on October 10, stating they were “disappointed” with the Polar award, which “falls short of the Biden-Harris Administration’s vision for the CHIPS Act” and the robust labor standards they have advocated for over the past two years.
The following day, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Ed Markey sent their own letter to Raimondo demanding details of agreements with chipmakers covering job quality, wages, worker health and safety, environmental impact, and stock buybacks.
“Commerce’s lack of transparency raises serious concerns about how it’s managing this massive public investment,” Warren stated to PMG.
Chipmakers are also voicing concerns, with some claiming the government’s award process has been prolonged by endless negotiations regarding policy conditions.
“The journey to receive grants has taken much longer and been more complicated than we expected,” said Ganesh Moorthy, CEO of Microchip Technology. Although his company’s preliminary grant was approved in January, he indicated that negotiations for the funds are still ongoing ten months later, partly due to disagreements among federal agencies about priority conditions, each pursuing their own agenda.
A Commerce Department spokesperson defended the program as moving swiftly while maintaining a “rigorous approach” to negotiations.
In an October 18 interview, a Biden administration official acknowledged industry frustrations but emphasized that they reflect government negotiators holding chipmakers to high standards. Many deals, according to the official, are “on the closing stretch.”
“There are understandably a lot of participants at the company level that want to close the deal faster or get the money faster,” the official explained. “I think it's a hallmark of a good program that we have a really strong team at the Department of Commerce that's vigorously negotiating on behalf of U.S. taxpayers.”
The CHIPS and Science Act is a significant and unconventional move by Washington into industrial policy—specifically designed to bolster a singular industry for both economic and national security reasons. With the global semiconductor market valued at $500 billion and increasingly shifting offshore, the law aims to reverse this trend.
To secure passage of the bill in 2022, Biden required support from progressives in Congress, which Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo ensured by incorporating protective measures for taxpayers against corporate misuse of funds. The bill restricts beneficiaries from significantly expanding operations in China and explicitly forbids using subsidies for stock buybacks or shareholder payments. Additionally, new guidance indicated that the agency would prioritize companies dedicated to promoting innovation, workers, and local communities.
Progressives viewed this agreement as a vital victory. “It’s the strongest language we've ever been able to get” for federal grant-making related to domestic manufacturing, said Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal in an interview. The bill passed with nearly unanimous support from Democrats.
As the CHIPS subsidy initiative has progressed, Congressional Democrats have maintained pressure. In 2023, over 180 members signed a letter urging Raimondo to link strong workforce and accountability standards to the payouts to companies. This February, more than 120 members signed another letter requesting stringent labor standards, prompting the department to brief Labor Caucus staff on its undertakings.
Initially, the deal appeared stable. When the Commerce Department announced last year that chipmakers could begin applying for funds, it stated that companies would have to comply with wage standards mandated by the Davis-Bacon Act. Larger applicants seeking more than $150 million faced additional requirements related to childcare for workers and profit-sharing with the government.
However, those safeguards started to seem less robust as negotiations progressed. To date, the Biden administration has announced 20 preliminary grants, totaling over $36 billion. Each grant necessitates individual negotiations and due diligence with companies, a process that has extended for nearly ten months for chipmakers and has thus far resulted in only the Polar award. The terms regarding labor, environmental, and financial obligations of that agreement—if they exist—are undisclosed within a private contract that the government has chosen not to release.
In a September call with reporters about the Polar award, the administration defended the choice to keep contract language private, asserting that the milestones encompass “business confidential information.”
Jayapal mentioned her staff received a briefing on the Polar contract but were only allowed to see a single sentence concerning stock buybacks.
“If the department is actually trying to implement the conditions that we agreed to, we need to know about it,” she emphasized.
Another regulatory victory for the companies occurred in October, marking a setback for progressives.
Previously, projects funded by CHIPS money were required to undergo environmental impact review under the longstanding National Environmental Policy Act — a requirement that was unpopular among both the chip industry and its Congressional supporters.
As the government prepared to examine applications in 2023, Senators Mark Kelly and Ted Cruz introduced a bill to exempt certain projects from NEPA review. Congress passed this legislation in September, quickly signed by Biden despite public objections from some Democratic committee leaders and several environmental and public health organizations. Now, depending on the nature and scale of their grant, specific CHIPS projects may avoid the NEPA review altogether.
In response, concerned advocates have started focusing on the transparency of individual CHIPS agreements. Public access to these contracts could serve as the “last existing lever” for public influence regarding the effects of new chip facilities, asserted Harry Manin, the Sierra Club’s deputy legislative director for industrial policy.
This issue of disclosure is particularly pertinent; the Commerce Department’s own application guidelines for CHIPS Act facilities require companies to submit workforce development plans that “must include” processes for “reporting publicly on the goals and commitments,” and state that they are expected to “make data publicly available” in some manner.
However, details about the Polar award lacked this requirement upon its late September release, inciting frustration among progressive leaders in the Senate, who subsequently sent their letter in mid-October.
“Congress charged Secretary Raimondo with overseeing billions of dollars in CHIPS grants — that means ensuring those taxpayer dollars go toward good jobs, not stock buybacks,” Warren asserted in an emailed PMG statement. “The Department has made some big promises, but the devil is in the details.”
A spokesperson for the Commerce Department responded that the agency has been attentive to many of the concerns raised by Congress. “Our team has worked tirelessly for more than two years meeting with Congressional offices and a diverse set of stakeholders, holding hundreds of meetings and briefings with representatives from industry, labor and environmental groups and more,” the spokesperson stated.
Administration officials pledged to enhance transparency for Congress and advocates, though specifics are still under discussion, and it remains uncertain whether these measures will effectively address the dissatisfaction of lawmakers.
“The Commerce Department still very much intends to release publicly some level of reporting because I think they want to share what they feel will be a huge success in creating high quality jobs,” one official stated, adding that "the exact form of how that is communicated is still being figured out" and cautioning that the first award shouldn't necessarily reflect how future implementations might proceed.
Another official mentioned that discussions are ongoing regarding the pay and working conditions of new CHIPS jobs but warned that it is premature to assess the quality of these positions: “Of course, most of them don't exist yet.”
The Commerce Department highlighted several environmental and worker safety commitments it anticipates including in CHIPS award agreements. These may address measures to reduce carbon emissions, utilize renewable energy sources, safely manage the disposal of toxic chemicals, and establish forums for discussing worker safety concerns.
The agency did not clarify whether it would release contract details or additional information for public scrutiny of which requirements are included in any specific arrangement.
With only one CHIPS award finalized, the majority of the manufacturing funds will be allocated under a new administration—potentially one from a different political party.
Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have vastly different perspectives on how to stimulate economic growth, safeguard American trade, and generate new manufacturing employment opportunities. Harris supports Biden’s industrial approach, while Trump promotes tariff increases and income tax reductions as superior methods for fostering domestic manufacturing.
On Monday, Harris made a significant effort to campaign for the CHIPS Act, visiting the Hemlock Semiconductor factory—a Michigan chip supplier poised to receive $325 million from the legislation. During her visit, she highlighted her own manufacturing credentials and expressed gratitude to the workforce, describing them as “a source of my optimism,” while simultaneously criticizing Trump for his recent jabs at the policy.
In a nearly three-hour interview for “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, Trump lambasted the CHIPS Act. “That chip deal is so bad,” the GOP presidential candidate stated. “We put up billions of dollars for rich companies.”
He contended that Washington could have attracted semiconductor industry investments more effectively through tariffs “so high that they will come and build their chip companies for nothing.”
Notwithstanding Trump’s remarks, the CHIPS and Science Act remains the law, which means that tens of billions of dollars are expected to reach chipmakers. However, progressives express concern that a Trump administration would impose even fewer conditions on the funding, and despite their reservations regarding the current administration, they recognize a preference for negotiating with them.
“Hopefully, we're going to win in November, and we're going to have a continued chance to continue to make sure that we are achieving what we actually want to achieve with taxpayer dollars,” Jayapal stated.
Unlike Trump, even critical Democrats still support the law—but they prefer its implementation to fit their parameters. While working to ensure labor standards are maintained, Rep. Debbie Dingell stressed the need for the administration to “keep this moving.” She remarked that the time taken for the Hemlock award was excessive. “We need to get these deals done,” Dingell said.
In 2025, significant interests for tech companies in Congress will extend beyond the disbursement of CHIPS funds. A substantial portion of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts is on the brink of expiration next year, and the industry seeks Congressional action to extend and enhance the generous tax incentives in the CHIPS and Science Act. Achieving that will require Democratic support.
“Will the progressive Democrats object in 2026 to an extension of the credit? That could be a significant issue if Harris wins, and it might also pose challenges for Trump,” Hufbauer indicated.
Several lawmakers have mentioned that issues regarding transparency and corporate accountability hold enough weight to potentially hinder future support for the chip industry.
Rep. Mark Pocan highlighted the risks of repeating the failed Foxconn project in Wisconsin, where the company reneged on its commitments to taxpayers and negotiated reduced benchmarks. “The companies, they're trying to obviously work this in a way that they have the least extra work in order to get the funding,” he observed. “It’s hard to ask for tax credits if you haven't proven that they work.”
“I would certainly think by the time that the election results are announced, both sides will appreciate that we have to get this done quickly,” Norcross remarked. “Let's be absolutely clear, unless we align this with what is important to the taxpayer, to the workers, and to the company, I would be very hesitant about taking another step forward.”
James del Carmen contributed to this report for TROIB News
The 2022 legislation is a landmark instance of industrial policy aimed at strengthening the American high-tech sector by investing in semiconductor manufacturing. To garner support from fellow Democrats, the Biden administration assured a comprehensive suite of environmental regulations, employee benefits, and public accountability measures would be included.
However, in early October, Biden signed a law that rolled back a vital environmental review requirement that companies were expected to meet. The first significant award given under the act — $123 million to Polar Semiconductor in Minnesota — was issued with sealed terms, raising concerns among initial backers that tech firms might benefit without adequate public scrutiny.
In light of former President Donald Trump's recent criticisms of the CHIPS program, the administration faces the prospect of opposition from a potential future president who might fundamentally alter the law’s implementation. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson stated on Friday that if Trump wins and Republicans regain control of Congress, they may attempt to remove the law's elements unfavorable to the industry.
This criticism from both sides of the political spectrum prompts questions about the future of one of the president's key long-term legislative achievements.
“Whatever the administration does, it’ll be inadequate,” remarked Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and former top Treasury official, predicting significant "blowback" from all directions as the law progresses.
The evolution of the CHIPS Act illustrates the challenges inherent in developing a major industry-supporting policy. The Biden administration is trying to reconcile rapid business execution with an intricate array of political and policy goals, seemingly leaving all parties dissatisfied. As a result, officials are finding it challenging to fulfill their promises to deliver clear public outcomes, which creates a gap between their articulated vision and the practical realities.
“We have two very different visions of what we believe an American investment into an industry should meet,” said Rep. Donald Norcross, co-chair of the Labor Caucus, referencing the clash between industry priorities and Democratic objectives.
Among Democrats, backlash is already evident. Norcross and three fellow Democratic Labor Caucus leaders expressed discontent in a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on October 10, stating they were “disappointed” with the Polar award, which “falls short of the Biden-Harris Administration’s vision for the CHIPS Act” and the robust labor standards they have advocated for over the past two years.
The following day, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Ed Markey sent their own letter to Raimondo demanding details of agreements with chipmakers covering job quality, wages, worker health and safety, environmental impact, and stock buybacks.
“Commerce’s lack of transparency raises serious concerns about how it’s managing this massive public investment,” Warren stated to PMG.
Chipmakers are also voicing concerns, with some claiming the government’s award process has been prolonged by endless negotiations regarding policy conditions.
“The journey to receive grants has taken much longer and been more complicated than we expected,” said Ganesh Moorthy, CEO of Microchip Technology. Although his company’s preliminary grant was approved in January, he indicated that negotiations for the funds are still ongoing ten months later, partly due to disagreements among federal agencies about priority conditions, each pursuing their own agenda.
A Commerce Department spokesperson defended the program as moving swiftly while maintaining a “rigorous approach” to negotiations.
In an October 18 interview, a Biden administration official acknowledged industry frustrations but emphasized that they reflect government negotiators holding chipmakers to high standards. Many deals, according to the official, are “on the closing stretch.”
“There are understandably a lot of participants at the company level that want to close the deal faster or get the money faster,” the official explained. “I think it's a hallmark of a good program that we have a really strong team at the Department of Commerce that's vigorously negotiating on behalf of U.S. taxpayers.”
The CHIPS and Science Act is a significant and unconventional move by Washington into industrial policy—specifically designed to bolster a singular industry for both economic and national security reasons. With the global semiconductor market valued at $500 billion and increasingly shifting offshore, the law aims to reverse this trend.
To secure passage of the bill in 2022, Biden required support from progressives in Congress, which Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo ensured by incorporating protective measures for taxpayers against corporate misuse of funds. The bill restricts beneficiaries from significantly expanding operations in China and explicitly forbids using subsidies for stock buybacks or shareholder payments. Additionally, new guidance indicated that the agency would prioritize companies dedicated to promoting innovation, workers, and local communities.
Progressives viewed this agreement as a vital victory. “It’s the strongest language we've ever been able to get” for federal grant-making related to domestic manufacturing, said Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal in an interview. The bill passed with nearly unanimous support from Democrats.
As the CHIPS subsidy initiative has progressed, Congressional Democrats have maintained pressure. In 2023, over 180 members signed a letter urging Raimondo to link strong workforce and accountability standards to the payouts to companies. This February, more than 120 members signed another letter requesting stringent labor standards, prompting the department to brief Labor Caucus staff on its undertakings.
Initially, the deal appeared stable. When the Commerce Department announced last year that chipmakers could begin applying for funds, it stated that companies would have to comply with wage standards mandated by the Davis-Bacon Act. Larger applicants seeking more than $150 million faced additional requirements related to childcare for workers and profit-sharing with the government.
However, those safeguards started to seem less robust as negotiations progressed. To date, the Biden administration has announced 20 preliminary grants, totaling over $36 billion. Each grant necessitates individual negotiations and due diligence with companies, a process that has extended for nearly ten months for chipmakers and has thus far resulted in only the Polar award. The terms regarding labor, environmental, and financial obligations of that agreement—if they exist—are undisclosed within a private contract that the government has chosen not to release.
In a September call with reporters about the Polar award, the administration defended the choice to keep contract language private, asserting that the milestones encompass “business confidential information.”
Jayapal mentioned her staff received a briefing on the Polar contract but were only allowed to see a single sentence concerning stock buybacks.
“If the department is actually trying to implement the conditions that we agreed to, we need to know about it,” she emphasized.
Another regulatory victory for the companies occurred in October, marking a setback for progressives.
Previously, projects funded by CHIPS money were required to undergo environmental impact review under the longstanding National Environmental Policy Act — a requirement that was unpopular among both the chip industry and its Congressional supporters.
As the government prepared to examine applications in 2023, Senators Mark Kelly and Ted Cruz introduced a bill to exempt certain projects from NEPA review. Congress passed this legislation in September, quickly signed by Biden despite public objections from some Democratic committee leaders and several environmental and public health organizations. Now, depending on the nature and scale of their grant, specific CHIPS projects may avoid the NEPA review altogether.
In response, concerned advocates have started focusing on the transparency of individual CHIPS agreements. Public access to these contracts could serve as the “last existing lever” for public influence regarding the effects of new chip facilities, asserted Harry Manin, the Sierra Club’s deputy legislative director for industrial policy.
This issue of disclosure is particularly pertinent; the Commerce Department’s own application guidelines for CHIPS Act facilities require companies to submit workforce development plans that “must include” processes for “reporting publicly on the goals and commitments,” and state that they are expected to “make data publicly available” in some manner.
However, details about the Polar award lacked this requirement upon its late September release, inciting frustration among progressive leaders in the Senate, who subsequently sent their letter in mid-October.
“Congress charged Secretary Raimondo with overseeing billions of dollars in CHIPS grants — that means ensuring those taxpayer dollars go toward good jobs, not stock buybacks,” Warren asserted in an emailed PMG statement. “The Department has made some big promises, but the devil is in the details.”
A spokesperson for the Commerce Department responded that the agency has been attentive to many of the concerns raised by Congress. “Our team has worked tirelessly for more than two years meeting with Congressional offices and a diverse set of stakeholders, holding hundreds of meetings and briefings with representatives from industry, labor and environmental groups and more,” the spokesperson stated.
Administration officials pledged to enhance transparency for Congress and advocates, though specifics are still under discussion, and it remains uncertain whether these measures will effectively address the dissatisfaction of lawmakers.
“The Commerce Department still very much intends to release publicly some level of reporting because I think they want to share what they feel will be a huge success in creating high quality jobs,” one official stated, adding that "the exact form of how that is communicated is still being figured out" and cautioning that the first award shouldn't necessarily reflect how future implementations might proceed.
Another official mentioned that discussions are ongoing regarding the pay and working conditions of new CHIPS jobs but warned that it is premature to assess the quality of these positions: “Of course, most of them don't exist yet.”
The Commerce Department highlighted several environmental and worker safety commitments it anticipates including in CHIPS award agreements. These may address measures to reduce carbon emissions, utilize renewable energy sources, safely manage the disposal of toxic chemicals, and establish forums for discussing worker safety concerns.
The agency did not clarify whether it would release contract details or additional information for public scrutiny of which requirements are included in any specific arrangement.
With only one CHIPS award finalized, the majority of the manufacturing funds will be allocated under a new administration—potentially one from a different political party.
Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have vastly different perspectives on how to stimulate economic growth, safeguard American trade, and generate new manufacturing employment opportunities. Harris supports Biden’s industrial approach, while Trump promotes tariff increases and income tax reductions as superior methods for fostering domestic manufacturing.
On Monday, Harris made a significant effort to campaign for the CHIPS Act, visiting the Hemlock Semiconductor factory—a Michigan chip supplier poised to receive $325 million from the legislation. During her visit, she highlighted her own manufacturing credentials and expressed gratitude to the workforce, describing them as “a source of my optimism,” while simultaneously criticizing Trump for his recent jabs at the policy.
In a nearly three-hour interview for “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, Trump lambasted the CHIPS Act. “That chip deal is so bad,” the GOP presidential candidate stated. “We put up billions of dollars for rich companies.”
He contended that Washington could have attracted semiconductor industry investments more effectively through tariffs “so high that they will come and build their chip companies for nothing.”
Notwithstanding Trump’s remarks, the CHIPS and Science Act remains the law, which means that tens of billions of dollars are expected to reach chipmakers. However, progressives express concern that a Trump administration would impose even fewer conditions on the funding, and despite their reservations regarding the current administration, they recognize a preference for negotiating with them.
“Hopefully, we're going to win in November, and we're going to have a continued chance to continue to make sure that we are achieving what we actually want to achieve with taxpayer dollars,” Jayapal stated.
Unlike Trump, even critical Democrats still support the law—but they prefer its implementation to fit their parameters. While working to ensure labor standards are maintained, Rep. Debbie Dingell stressed the need for the administration to “keep this moving.” She remarked that the time taken for the Hemlock award was excessive. “We need to get these deals done,” Dingell said.
In 2025, significant interests for tech companies in Congress will extend beyond the disbursement of CHIPS funds. A substantial portion of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts is on the brink of expiration next year, and the industry seeks Congressional action to extend and enhance the generous tax incentives in the CHIPS and Science Act. Achieving that will require Democratic support.
“Will the progressive Democrats object in 2026 to an extension of the credit? That could be a significant issue if Harris wins, and it might also pose challenges for Trump,” Hufbauer indicated.
Several lawmakers have mentioned that issues regarding transparency and corporate accountability hold enough weight to potentially hinder future support for the chip industry.
Rep. Mark Pocan highlighted the risks of repeating the failed Foxconn project in Wisconsin, where the company reneged on its commitments to taxpayers and negotiated reduced benchmarks. “The companies, they're trying to obviously work this in a way that they have the least extra work in order to get the funding,” he observed. “It’s hard to ask for tax credits if you haven't proven that they work.”
“I would certainly think by the time that the election results are announced, both sides will appreciate that we have to get this done quickly,” Norcross remarked. “Let's be absolutely clear, unless we align this with what is important to the taxpayer, to the workers, and to the company, I would be very hesitant about taking another step forward.”
James del Carmen contributed to this report for TROIB News
