2 Ohio Senators help hammer out microchip funding deal

WHEELING, W.Va. (WTRF) — Two Ohio U.S. Senators are coming together to join the same team in effort to hammer out a compromise version of two separate bills that passed in both the House and the Senate.

The bills that passed would subsidize the domestic semiconductor industry.

Republican Senator Rob Portman announced earlier this week that he will join Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown on the same committee as both Republicans and Democrats try to meet somewhere in the middle when it comes to semiconductor chips funding.

It is expected to take several weeks for the committee to work through the significant differences between the bills.

Both senators agree that Ohio’s stake in passing the bill is enormous given Intel’s $20 billion dollar plan to build a semiconductor plan outside Columbus with the intent of creating 10,000 jobs.

So we’ve got to begin to bring this back. If we don’t, we’re not going to be able to build our own cars,  our own washing machines and our own electronics and so on. We will be totally dependent on Asia for this product, so that’s the second part to the bill that I really think is important and particularly important for Ohio because Ohio has a company called Intel that has agreed to make the largest investment ever in any economic development investment in Ohio to build these semiconductors. They really want this legislation to pass which gives them a leg up.

Sen. Rob Portman, R, Ohio

My focus is make sure we pass it quickly because Europe already is trying to steal our ideas on this and trying to attract these companies there and second to make sure the workers are at the center of this. This is to help more chip manufacturing in the U.S., but this ultimately to me, is about the workers and I will make sure my role on that committee is to make sure that workers are represented and this is all about job creation. I want to help companies, but this is really about job creation and really about the workers.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D, Ohio

Senator Portman says the legislation would provide more than $50 million dollars in new federal investments for research, design and manufacturing of semiconductors and would boost the nation’s global competitiveness.

According to Senator Brown, he expects quick negotiation of a final bill that the President can sign into law.