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June 13, 2023
Surprise! We are thrilled to share this Season 5 bonus episode, which came about from an unexpected opportunity to interview a member of Congress. From California’s 17th Congressional District, we are joined today by Representative Ro Khanna, who played a vital role in the formation of the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act. Rep. Khanna sat down with Dan and Alison to discuss how the CHIPS and Science Act contributes to climate policy, progress on implementation, the bipartisan appeal of the law, and more.
Show notes:
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Episode Transcript:
Dan Bresette: Hello and welcome to a surprise bonus episode of The Climate Conversation! I’m Dan Bresette, president of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, and with me is my colleague, Alison Davis. Hey, Alison.
Alison Davis: Hello Dan and hello to our audience! We are so excited to bring you this one last episode for the fifth season of The Climate Conversation. Our previous episode on the circular economy was supposed to be the season finale, but then we had an opportunity to speak with a member of Congress who is doing some amazing work in climate policy. So of course we jumped at the chance! Dan, would you do the honors of introducing our surprise guest?
Dan: Our guest today is none other than Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat representing California’s 17th Congressional District, which is in the heart of Silicon Valley. Rep. Khanna is working in the House to restore American manufacturing and technology leadership, improve the lives of working people, and advance U.S. leadership on climate, human rights, and diplomacy around the world. He authored the Endless Frontiers Act, which formed the basis for the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act, which was enacted by Congress last year.
Alison: The bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act was signed into law on August 9th of last year. It was designed to strengthen American manufacturing, supply chains, and national security, while also working with the investments in the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to make even more progress on addressing the climate crisis. The investments in the CHIPS and Science Act are bolstering the development of zero-emission technologies in the United States, as semiconductor chips are used in electric vehicles and solar panels.
Dan: Rep. Khanna sat down with Alison and me to discuss how the CHIPS and Science Act contributes to climate policy, progress on implementation, the bipartisan appeal of the law, and more. And even better, he invited us into his office! So you’d better believe that Alison got all of our equipment and scurried up to Capitol Hill in order to have this really great conversation with Rep. Khanna. I hope you enjoy it.
Well, Representative Khanna, really nice of you to make time today to talk with Alison and me about the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act, and climate change in general. Thanks so much for making time. I know it's a busy day. I'd like to start by asking you sort of what is it in the CHIPS and Science Act that makes it a climate policy? What are the benefits of producing more semiconductors in the United States to U.S. climate policy?
Representative Ro Khanna: Well, first of all, the CHIPS and Science Act has hundreds of millions of dollars allocated for green technology research, billions of dollars allocated to the NSF (National Science Foundation) tech directorate that will help commercialize green technology, and has significant investments in the research and science that will impact climate. So there's a whole component to it, aside from just the chips production. But then when you look at the chips production, obviously, the more production that we can do in the United States, the less shipping that's needed, that will help lower CO2 emissions. And these factories are going to be very clean, modern, much cleaner than in Asia in terms of the environmental impact.
Dan: And I have to ask—the CHIPS and Science Act is a great name for a bill. Who came up with CHIPS? Who came up with that acronym, do you recall?
Rep. Khanna: You know, I don't remember. Our bill was called Endless Frontiers based on Vannevar Bush, which had the first iteration of it. And I don't know who came up with CHIPS and Science. I’d probably credit Senator Schumer, but I don't know if he's the one who actually came up with the name.
Dan: Well, kudos whoever did it, because it's a great name. It's very catchy.
Alison: And can you talk about the status of implementation since the law was passed last July (*August)?
Rep. Khanna: We've had strong implementation on the semiconductor part. Most of the semiconductor funding has passed, it is starting to be appropriated. We've seen two Intel factories come up in Ohio, Micron’s factory is in upstate New York, TSMC in Arizona. We still need Congress to act to appropriate the funding for the science part. We need the funding for the tech directorate, we need the bump up in NSF funding, we need the funding for place-based policies of creating tech hubs. And that's something that I'm working towards to get this Congress to actually fund the science part.
Alison: And you mentioned the tech hubs, what do you hope will be accomplished by them?
Rep. Khanna: Well, we need to invest in places where you have a university, where you have a private business, to help specialize in creating new technology. Not every place is going to become Silicon Valley. But we can create hubs with specialization for manufacturing, for research and development, in a particular industry. You know, Manchester, New Hampshire is a great example. They used to be the textile capital of the world, and then under President Obama's leadership, they got grants to become a hub for bio-manufacturing. Now they're leading the world in tissue production, in organ production. Eventually, the way we will solve the challenge of kidney failure is to actually be able to produce kidneys out of material. And all of that leading work is being done in Manchester, New Hampshire. So that's an example of a bio-manufacturing hub, and we can create these kinds of hubs across the country.
Dan: You mentioned the Endless Frontiers Act, which was in some ways the source material for the CHIPS and Science Act, and a lot of those provisions have since been enacted as part of CHIPS and Science Act. What do you see on the horizon? What are the next policy issues that you would like to address in legislation around semiconductor production and science policy more generally?
Rep. Khanna: We need more funding for the advanced stage of production in the United States. Right now, a lot of that is still at TSMC, when you're looking at the 2-, 3-, 4-nanometer chips. How do we make sure that we aren't dependent 90 percent on Asia for that, and bring more of that production here? And then we need more of the production of ordinary chips that go in your car or refrigerator or dishwasher. Those aren't the advanced chips, those are often 60, 80 nanometers. A lot of that assembly and production actually is taking place in China. So how do we bring more of that into the United States? Those are two areas that we need more work.
Dan: The Endless Frontiers Act was very bipartisan. The CHIPS and Science Act also passed on a bipartisan basis. What is it about these issues that helps bring members of the two parties together to try to solve these issues?
Rep. Khanna: Well, it's about national security. There's a recognition that we can't be 90 percent dependent on Taiwan and Asia for advanced chips that our military will need, that the most sophisticated consumer products like a smartphone will need. It would be irresponsible for America not to have a production base. And there's also a bipartisan recognition that we need to become a manufacturing superpower again, that we should not go the way of Great Britain—a great power that is in decline—because they lost their manufacturing base.
Dan: You represent a district in the United States that includes Silicon Valley, which is one of the major centers of this type of work in the world. What are the benefits from the CHIPS and Science Act that you think will be realized by constituents in your district back home?
Rep. Khanna: Well, you see already Intel committed to advanced manufacturing for the most cutting-edge chips in Ohio, and Intel is headquartered in my district. So they're benefiting directly from CHIPS and Science, as is the state of Ohio, and of course the American people, because those advanced logic chips will be produced in the heartland now. You also will see a lot of funding in the CHIPS and Science Act for AI research, for quantum research, for alternative protein research, for synthetic biology research, for biotech research, and much of that will happen in technology hubs like Silicon Valley.
Dan: A quick follow-up question. You mentioned artificial intelligence (AI). There's a lot of news lately about AI and the advancements. Can you speak to maybe some of the work that you're doing to bring Congress up to speed on AI and maybe some of the issues that you might be looking to address in policy?
Rep. Khanna: Well, we need to have a balanced view on AI. On one hand, AI can be a very powerful tool. It can help us map the human genome of a person at a fraction of the cost as in the past. So when President Clinton started the project, it used to cost about $3 billion to map an individual's human genome. Now it can be $100, and AI can make that accurate. Why does that matter? Now you could have, in the next ten years, medical cures that are customized to an individual. So not just a generic cure, but something that accounts for your human genome, and then tailors a drug to specifically address that. AI can help us in diagnosis so that we don't miss breast cancer or types of cancer and can detect it early. But AI also has dangers. It needs third-party auditing. It needs human checks. And we need a regulatory framework to put those guardrails.
Alison: And circling back to the CHIPS and Science Act. How will this law help to bolster equity in the United States, especially in terms of environmental justice?
Rep. Khanna: One of the key components is a place-based policy and a policy of inclusion. So a lot of the funding is going to go to communities in the heartland, communities of color. There is an emphasis on making sure women are participating. So you have equity and participation in who's getting the science and technology funding. And then for the part of it that is going to clean tech production, clean tech research, those grants again will be inclusive, both based on the population and the place.
Alison: Thank you so much.
Dan: Yes, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to talk with us about these policy issues. Really, really appreciate it. And wish you all the best as Congress continues its work here in the 118th Congress. Thank you so much.
Rep. Khanna: Thank you. Thank you for your focus on science and climate.
Dan: And also, big thanks to your staff who helped arrange this today. Couldn't do it without them for sure.
Rep. Khanna: Yes, they're great. Thank you.
Dan: And there you have it, folks! Thank you so much to Rep. Khanna for being our first Congressional guest on The Climate Conversation—and hopefully, he’s the first of many. And another huge thanks to his wonderful staff for making it happen, especially Sarah, Marie, and Nicole. A great office to work with. Alison and I really really appreciated the opportunity to work with you to bring Rep. Khanna and his opinions about CHIPS and Science Act to our podcast audience.
Alison: This really was a fantastic way to wrap up the fifth season of our podcast. We’ll pick back up with another season in September, but we have plenty of other content planned for our audience over the summer.
Dan: And really, who knows? I suppose we can’t rule out another bonus episode of the podcast. But until we’re ready to say something about that, we still have one more briefing in EESI’s Farm Bill in Focus series, which will cover opportunities for conservation programs—that’s on Wednesday, July (*June) 21st. After that we’ll be focused—lazer-focused—on our big event of the year, the 26th Annual Congressional Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency EXPO and Policy Forum. Join us on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, July 18th, to hear top-level experts dive into a wide range of issues, including clean energy technologies, clean energy opportunities in rural communities, sustainable transportation, energy efficiency, investing in the clean energy workforce, and much much more! And a major through-line of the EXPO this year will be innovation and doing what we need to put the United States in the leadership position where it belongs when it comes to clean energy and climate technology. We hope to see you there.
Alison: If you want to learn more about EESI’s work on federal climate policy, head to our website at eesi.org. Also, follow us on social media @eesionline for all of our recent updates. The Climate Conversation is published as a supplement to our bi-weekly newsletter, Climate Change Solutions. Go to eesi.org/signup to subscribe. Thanks for joining us and see you in September!
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