President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed legislation that will exempt some U.S. semiconductor manufacturing facilities from federal environmental reviews.
These facilities are receiving government subsidies.
Without the new legislation, projects from the $52.7 billion CHIPS Act of 2022 could have been forced to undergo additional federal environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 to win federal permits.
Proponents say those projects had already complied with federal, state and local environmental regulations and permitting requirement.
They said that without the change, these projects could have potentially faced years of additional delays.
Reviews Essential
Environmental groups like the Sierra Club say the reviews are essential to “keep communities and workers safe from the hazardous contaminants used in the semiconductor industry.”
The U.S. Commerce Department has allocated more than $35 billion for 26 projects including $6.4 billion in grants under the 2022 law to South Korea’s Samsung, to expand chip production in Texas.
Apart from this, the department has allocated $8.5 billion for Intel, $6.6 billion for Taiwan’s TSMC to build out its American production and $6.1 billion for Micron Technology to fund U.S. factories.
White House Commitment
The White House said it will “continue to uphold our commitment to ensuring that semiconductor projects are built and operated in a way that meets clean water, clean air, endangered species, and other federal requirements and minimises risks and impacts to workers, public health, and the environment.”
Warning By Semiconductor Industry Association
The Semiconductor Industry Association had warned that without the law, the reviews could have slowed or stopped projects already under construction.
Democratic Senator Mark Kelly and Republican Senator Ted Cruz co-authored the bipartisan legislation.
‘Preventing Delays’
“By preventing unnecessary delays in the construction of microchip manufacturing facilities, this bill will help maximise our efforts to bring this industry back to America, creating thousands of good-paying jobs and strengthening our supply chains,” Kelly said.
Cruz said the effort to streamline permits is “a crucial step in onshoring jobs and making our country less dependent on China for semiconductors critical to national defence.”
U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren criticised the bill and said that California was home to sites that had been polluted from prior semiconductor or microelectronics manufacturing.
“We should be learning from this legacy and ensuring we don’t repeat it,” she said, calling reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act “a vitally important tool in this regard.”
(With inputs from Reuters)
