[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 71 (Thursday, April 27, 2023)] [House] [Pages H2077-H2081] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Date: 2023-04-27
Chamber: HOUSE
Ms. STEVENS: I would like to shift focus. I rise in this Congress reflecting on the state of the U.S. industrial base, reflecting as a Member of Congress from Michigan, as a Member of Congress who represents Oakland County, as a Member of Congress who lives in Oakland County, as a Member of Congress who represents Automation Alley, as someone who represents the largest concentration of automotive suppliers and, certainly, some of our automotive manufacturers, our original equipment manufacturers, as we like to call them. Nearly every week since I got elected to Congress, I participate in a program. I call it ``Manufacturing Monday,'' and I visit our small businesses, our small manufacturers, our mom-and-pop shops, often passed down from parent to child; manufacturers who have been through a whole lot; manufacturers who guided the passage of the USMCA, which was done before COVID ever entered our lexicon, to give the North American Continent a fair shot at competing, a framework to compete, a framework to sell our goods internationally. Export channels are phenomenal. They lead to revenues. They lead to productivity. People want to buy American products throughout the world. They recognize our flag. They recognize our craftsmanship. Then, in no short order, after we passed USMCA, renegotiating NAFTA, giving our manufacturers and our workers a leg up, of course, we were disrupted. We were disrupted by a global pandemic. In this very Chamber, as Members of Congress representing every ZIP Code throughout this Nation gathered to vote, gathered to respond to the charge of the time, people were tapping me on the shoulder. How are you doing this in Michigan so well? How are you responding to these supply chain disruptions? How do Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, otherwise sometimes known as Chrysler, know how to immediately act to these supply chain disruptions, sourcing masks, producing ventilators, finding out who has the specs and who doesn't? We kept working. We kept making. We stood up and responded to the industrial call to action of this very Nation, similar to how we did in the World War II era. It is in our very blood. By the way, Michiganders, we are a northern State. Spring hits later than here in the mid-Atlantic, where the Nation's Capital resides. We are full of grit. We are full of toughness. We have seen some tough times, but we know how to rise through challenges and how to stick to the knitting and stick to the good work, even when the times aren't easy. Mr. Speaker, we find ourselves in a very unique and interesting moment, yet again on the springboard of the remarkable passage of the CHIPS and Science Act that I was so proud to play a leading role in passing as the vice chair last term of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee and the subcommittee chair for the Research and Technology Subcommittee. $52 billion for chips manufacturing is not a platitude. It is a real investment in industrial policy in this Nation. Why do we need to invest in chip manufacturing? We innovated the microchip. We innovated the company called Intel. The late Gordon Moore, who we recently said good-bye to within the last 6 weeks, I believe, innovated that microchip alongside his fellow academics out in the Western part of this Nation. At one point, we were making 40 percent of the chips, and then something happened. We got laissez- faire. We forgot about what it means to have an industrial base in this country, taking it for granted. Of course, Mr. Speaker, I served very proudly in the administration of President Barack Obama when we were responding to the inherited crisis of the Great Recession, working on what was known as the auto rescue, the largest managed industrial bankruptcy in the history of this Nation of General Motors and then Chrysler, at the time selling 8, 9 million cars globally a year. It is known as SAR, the indicator. It was unfathomable where we would be 12 years later, a dozen years later, at 16, 17 million SAR. We were talking about semiconductors. We were focusing on semiconductors. We were focusing on the minerals, not just the trade relationships, but the need to double down on manufacturing policy in the United States of America. Some of you might know that President Obama created the White House Office of Manufacturing Policy. He created what was then called the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation, now known as Manufacturing USA, about a dozen institutes in various research concentrations that exist throughout this Nation. One we boast about in Michigan is known as LIFT. We are very proud of our friends at LIFT. It used to be focused very specifically on lightweight materials. Now, they are in a variety of spaces and joined with The Composites Institute doing R&D, doing workforce training, smaller scale. We must look bigger. I am on the select committee, very proudly, serving under Chair   Mike Gallagher, also from the Midwest, from Wisconsin, the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. We are so dependent. We are so dependent on foreign markets. We want to sell to those markets, but when the pandemic hit our shores and you can't get the masks, and you can't get your manufacturing supply chains going because you outsourced it all, it is a wake-up moment. It was a major wake-up moment for microchips and semiconductors in the United States of America. All of a sudden, very brilliantly, this very body, our Chamber, the House of Representatives, where all great ideas begin, we put forward a bill in partnership with our colleagues in the other Chamber, the Senate. It became the CHIPS and Science Act, $52 billion. We will talk about the number.  Have we talked about what taxpayers spent, what is the return on that investment? It is a $52 billion spend over half a decade. It was already signed into law in August 2022. It has already begat $200 billion of private-sector investment. This is absolutely remarkable and brilliant. We are seeing these amazing microchip factories come into places across this country--Ohio, Arizona. We have Hemlock in Michigan. The challenge isn't over. We can't manufacture fast enough. It is not a light switch, complex manufacturing.Fabricators for chips can't get a hair strand caught in them. You must suit up. You must be trained. You must be disciplined. We are focused on the workforce consideration, which is why I was delighted that my CHIPPING IN bill made it into the CHIPS and Science Act--$25 million to the National Science Foundation to invest in the workforce development and training for chips manufacturing. This is cause for celebration. It is also cause for reflection because this bill, in many respects, was a catch-up bill. We were catching up to where we needed to be--40 percent of chips manufacturing in the 1990s, down to 10, 12 percent in the 2020s. The tide rolls out. Cars are sitting in parking lots. Microelectronics industries are going haywire. Prices are going out of control. Then, people are wondering about China and Taiwan, why we have to get all of these chips from Taiwan, and what happens with the national security ramifications of this. We can't move fast enough. Now, as we are doing the work on the competitiveness committee to lessen our reliance on the CCP and to recognize that the American way of doing business, the Western way of doing business through free markets in democratic nations, must continue to succeed as we inch our way, not just into the quarter-21st century, but the mid-21st century, which will be here before we know it. What is our charge? We understand the trade relationship. We understand that, between 1985 and 2000, the U.S. trade deficit with China grew steadily from $6 billion to $83 billion, a trade deficit. The deficit ballooned after the Chinese Communist Party joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. It is standing at a very stratospheric level at $309 billion. When we look specifically at key industries, we see it here as well. I have already expounded on chips. We recognize there is still a weakness. We can't move fast enough. This is a call to action. I have briefly mentioned rare minerals, critical minerals. Somewhere between 85 and 92 percent of the refining capacity is taking place in China, taking place on behalf of the CCP. We don't want to be overly reliant. We want to focus on our trade relationships and our strategy. I cannot tell you all the hundreds of manufacturing visits I have made as a sitting Member of this Chamber, not going in with a fancy podium, not going in with the press. I have two ears and a notepad and a member from my team, and we are establishing relationships. So, we are geeking out. It is great to see the equipment in action, but there are supply chain vulnerabilities. There are supply chain gaps. We have gone through this with materials. Steel has gone haywire. We have tried to tariff. We are still paying high prices. We are glad that U.S. Steel is making money, finally. Tariffs aren't going to be a comprehensive industrial policy for the United States of America. We have to figure out how to strategically invest. We don't need to do it at the rate of our competitors who do everything--well, the one competitor in this case, the CCP that is top down. That is autocratic. That is state sponsored. We don't need to do it like that. We need to bring the private sector along. Sometimes, these key stakeholders are begging for the table of collaboration. I saw this at the research institute that I worked in about a decade ago that was a part of that national network for manufacturing innovation, the Industrial Internet of Things, large data stacks, bringing together competitor companies, research institutions, and States to co-invest to get access to R&D. We have to scale. That is what we have been doing. It is actually quite amazing. Now, we ask ourselves, what is next? How are we going to build batteries in the United States of America? A small startup in my district, located in Troy, Michigan, called Intecells, absolutely brilliant, making the batteries to go into the electric vehicle. Of course, that is what we mean now when we say ``battery.'' We think of the electric vehicle, the sustainability charge, absolutely brilliant. Every Democrat in this Chamber, both House and Senate, joined together toward the end of the last term to pass the Inflation Reduction Act. Can you believe it? If you looked to last century, well, my goodness, you would never see the environmental groups and the automakers being on the same page, but they were on the same page with this one--zero emissions, making the sustainable vehicle. We did the bipartisan infrastructure bill. See, those who sit on this side of the Chamber can actually talk about our passage of the legislation. They do thank us a lot on the CCP committee for CHIPS and Science. It was bipartisan, I will give you that, but we could have gotten more.  {time}  1800  We didn't get any on IRA. We got a few on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. I am always delighted when we can work together in a bipartisan way, and I don't mock when we can't. These are the things I am talking about that bring people together, our House Manufacturing Caucus, with Mr. Joyce. We have a Democratic task force that I run with Whip Clyburn on manufacturing: doing, delivering, and setting us up for success. Manufacturing is technology. Manufacturing is high-tech. Manufacturing is software engineering. Manufacturing is computer numerical controls machines and computer-aided design. We are doing 2D and 3D, and we are doing the printing and all that other good stuff, but we need to get access to the materials. We need to figure out why we are behind on batteries and not blame each other and not blame the manufacturers who just want to build this stuff here. I want the jobs here. I want the union jobs here. I want the lithium to come through good sources that we have access to, so we are not just hanging around and waiting and hoping that this comes in. Hydrogen is also a great opportunity for us. But here is the deal, folks. Fighting each other isn't going to change the reality that 80 percent of the manufacturing capacity of those batteries is done in China. It is not. But Intecells, when I first met with them several years ago, their CEO, Shawn, said to me: Stevens, we have got to make this here. We have got to do this here. We are losing this race. Now, some of these whiz kids at Stanford University, that the chairman of the committee brought us to, are working on technology readiness. They are working on technology indicators. Well, my automakers bring this to me: Who is doing what? Where are we in the spectrum? Here is where the U.S. is with the EU and the CCP and on. We are also very excited and energized by our trade partnership with India and what that might mean, democracies working together. I happen to represent a very large concentration of Indian Americans who came to this Nation by Ford, primarily, to engineer and help work on the autos. This is exciting. Let's continue to bring in high-skilled talent. Mr. Durbin has a bill. We would like to get this done. We can't be operating off of 20th century immigration policies as we try and function and compete in the 21st century. Some are chasing the glitz and glamour that comes with the job. I get it. They want attention. They want to raise dollars. I am not out here to attack anyone specifically. But our work is not just profound and tied to the great history of this very Chamber and this institution and all the things we need to do. No, Mr. Speaker, it is tied to the very charge of this century that we exist in, which is renovating our systems, focusing on the functionality and efficiency of government to best serve its stakeholders, the voter and the constituent. Period. End of story. Well, it is a heap. We have got healthcare entanglements and bureaucracies that we need to address. We have got infrastructure challenges ongoing that, again, a bipartisan infrastructure bill, which was catching us up to work on fixing roads. Governor Whitmer in Michigan is highly focused on this. Lead in the pipes. I have got pipe challenges in Oakland County, Michigan. I have got Royal Oak Township that has water costs through the roof. I have got Pontiac that had power outages like the rest of the county fromtrees that we decided not to trim. Pontiac to West Bloomfield. We have got power outages for weeks on end in the innovation capital of the Midwest. So we have got to do the nitty-gritty, right? We have got to roll up our sleeves and do the stuff. I say this with all due respect, Mr. Speaker. That isn't always sexy, but it makes us work better. Then we can get in, and we will focus, and we are focusing. We are not going to wait. We parallel track our charge, we parallel track our effort, because artificial intelligence is here. This is maybe, in part, why I have a master's in philosophy and social policy, because it is raising unbelievable philosophical questions, artificial intelligence. It is not these gimmick podcasts that are just talking about falling in love with a robot or your kids doing homework with the AI chat. That is all interesting and disruptive. No, this is about systems. This is about systems of artificial intelligence in our Department of Defense, in our hospitals, that are making decisions about our everyday life. We need trust. As the vice chair of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, I chaired a hearing on artificial intelligence and bias. That is one leg of this. A regulatory framework would help. Continuing to invest would help. Continuing to lead, as we have in the United States of America, brilliantly, because we have the talent. We want the talent. We are in a global race for talent. Our universities of all stripes are really wonderful places to learn, educate, receive higher education, climb that ladder, produce that original research, and change the world. That is the only way we are going to succeed. We measure ourselves sometimes by how many Ph.D.s we have. How many people get to stay in America after they get that Ph.D., right? What are we losing out on because we haven't reformed? I have talked about the materials. I have talked about steel. I want to mention aluminum. We are very proud of both industries. We want to have more here in America. We want to be strong on the materials front. We also want to continue to work on advancing our charges in the composite space. I am also the originator of the House Plastic Solutions Task Force. Now, people get obsessed with the bottles, and the bottles need to be recycled. But plastic is in everything. It is in your clothes. It is in your shoes. It is in the chairs. We have got to think about better technologies to reuse.  Interestingly, my manufacturers in Michigan have Reman, and I have introduced legislation called Reman Day to salute their work and to continue to encourage it. There is no incentive to remanufacture your steel or your aluminum, but many companies see a bottom line with it, which is great. Those in the plastics sector, from my chemical manufacturers to my back-end manufacturers, are saying: We have got to reuse this plastic. Plastic comes from oil, folks. We don't want to just keep sourcing that way. We can reuse it. We have got companies, startups, innovators, who are helping us better recycle plastic. But we also could look for other composites. I don't really think banning plastic straws and drinking out of plastic cups with plastic lids is solving the meta challenge. I would be keen to the conversation of which we have entered into in this body of thinking through a limitation of single-use plastics for better recycling. By the way, there are other composites and other materials we can use. Forvia, which is in my district, an auto supplier, is trying to minimize the plastic in the interior of the car to breathe healthier. That is what they are calling it. They are using hemp. I am not knocking anyone. I am just simply looking at solutions for us. I have introduced the last two terms in Congress a plastic recycling technology bill that has really been bipartisan, and Representative Troy Balderson has joined with me in that bill in the past. We have worked on that in the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. That is a great start, because in some ways we are naive to think about their durability and plastics going into all of our food and plastics going into all of our equipment and cell phones and our medical tests and things like that. But we have got to think forward in terms of how we are going to succeed. Here are some other bills that we would like to support in this Chamber, I would like to implore the support of my colleagues on. Passing the Manufacturing Guard Act. The Manufacturing Guard Act is a bill to shore up our supply chains and prevent future emergency disruptions. Some, when COVID hit our shores, were saying this is like a weather event that has disrupted a part of the world. No, that wasn't a weather event. It was a global challenge, and it was a sustained disruption. Cybersecurity attacks are the same way. Tsunamis are a part of this. We have got to better prepare. A bill I introduced last Congress, alongside Mr. Balderson, Senators Coons, Rubio, Hassan, and Cornyn, would establish an Office of Supply Chain Preparedness in the Department of Commerce. How delightful would that be, as we have gotten CHIPS and Science done. So they are cooking up a great team at Commerce under the great leadership of Secretary Gina Raimondo, who I would like to salute for her great effort and dedication to passing CHIPS and Science. I fully believe that the Department of Commerce could house such a supply chain preparedness office, working cohesively with the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Ritchie Torres has a like bill along these lines which I endorse. Members of the manufacturing guard would advise the supply chain office, would run simulations, would test our systems. Where are we weak? Where do we need to implement technologies for supply chain visibility? We don't always know what's around the corner. We don't need to be afraid. Truman's wise words: America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, determination, and the willingness to do the job at hand. This is our American moment, industrial policy for the 21st century. Another bill that I would like to encourage my colleagues to support is the Promoting Digital Privacy Technologies Act. This is a great bill utilizing the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which we authorized and plussed up in CHIPS and Science and gave more energy to. By the way, NIST is playing a huge role in the CHIPS and Science Act. My privacy-enhancing technologies bill is going to direct the NSF to support competitive fundamental research on privacy-enhancing technologies. It's going to direct NIST to facilitate the development of standards and best practices for the integration of what we call PETs, privacy enhancing technologies, in the public and private sector to ensure that Americans continue to reap the rewards of data analysis while also protecting their most sensitive information. We don't need to jump in on hyper-regulation. But we can use Federal agencies like NIST and NSF, as we have seen them do since their origin, to serve as trustworthy and good partners with stakeholders from academia, industry, and the general public. We also have a great bill called the Shifting Forward Vehicle Technologies Research and Development Act. It is a total mouthful, but it is a great bill. I introduced it last Congress alongside my colleague from Michigan, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell. That bill reauthorizes the Advanced Vehicle Technology Program for R&D at the Department of Energy. I don't like to skip over the fact that the CHIPS and Science bill that was passed and signed into law did a lot of great things for DOE. We are seeing a lot of nice manufacturing partnerships and engagements with the Department of Energy throughout this country. We are also seeing the Department of Energy being exercised as a critical part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, some of these early-stage grants that are going out for cell batteries and hydrogen in the hydrogen hubs. But my Shifting Forward Vehicle Technologies Research and Development Act supports research for improving vehicle batteries for extremely fast-charging and wireless charging capabilities and efficiencies to lower costs, exploring efficient use, substitution, and recycling of critical materials. Here we go again: Technology for recycling, thinking about how we can usethat approach for access to rare earth minerals or precious metals that are at risk of supply chain disruption, testing advanced battery safety protection systems for high-voltage power and heat and on.  {time}  1815  we must pass quantum bills  Mr. Speaker, we know we have got to make a move on quantum. Quantum bills, there is kind of a nice package cooking out in the Science Committee. I am proud to share that in the last month I have served as the co- lead, coauthor for two quantum bills. The Quantum Sandbox for Near-Term Applications Act, which I have done with my colleague Mr. Obernolte to establish a quantum sandbox through public-private partnerships focused on quantum applications and development for the acceleration of this technology. Supercomputers, quantum. We are always in a race with the CCP on who has the fastest supercomputer. Well, quantum has arrived. Quantum, like AI and like the supercomputers before it, are very expensive to run, very cumbersome, and very costly. How far does this go and how fast does it go? We want to have these technologies here. This is why in CHIPS and Science we encourage the National Science Foundation, and we said to them, you are now going to create a new directorate: technology, innovation, and partnerships. It is all in this vain. Mr. Speaker, I actually heard this from the Senate majority leader, Mr. Schumer, he said that we want to be leading in quantum. The Quantum in Practice Act, which includes quantum molecular simulations and modeling in the National Quantum Initiative Act. That is my other bill. The Science Committee is absolutely on the brink of taking up a reauthorization of the National Quantum Initiative Act to support and expand quantum information science and technology research. It is a critical technology for the U.S. to remain a global leader on. Mr. Speaker, I have got a few closing points. One is a note of braggadocios. I boast in the great State of Michigan, the 10th largest State in the Union, and geographically the largest State east of the Mississippi, the most number of first robotic teams in the Union. We are engaging our students with the industry of the future. We are building. We are making. We are doing exciting workforce development. Those students are going on to skilled trades. Those students are going on to engineering. Those students are going on to communications to help us compete in these industries of the future. We must invest and lead in the development of the next generation of vehicles. That is what we are working on. We must have a robust investment in manufacturing and technology. I say investment as strategy. We have to do these things to win the future, and, most assuredly, we will do from the place that I call home, Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.