US Senate vote on China legislation is delayed by a group of Republicans
- Objection centers on the size of the Innovation and Competition Act, which has grown to more than 2,000 pages, and the federal role it embraces
- Senator Mike Lee of Utah asks if Washington should invest up to US$100 billion in tech research and US$10 billion to create new technology hubs
A US Senate vote on a wide-ranging bipartisan bill aimed at confronting China was thwarted on Friday by a handful of Republicans who threw up procedural hurdles that forced Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer to delay it until early next month.
Republican senators including Mike Lee of Utah and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin argued that lawmakers and the public need more time to review the Innovation and Competition Act, which has grown to more than 2,000 pages after the inclusion of a bipartisan amendment on Thursday, up from around 150 pages when the bill was first circulated in committee.
Schumer, who wrote the bill with Todd Young, an Indiana Republican, said that the vote would be delayed until early next month to prevent the process from running into the long Memorial Day weekend. The legislation is expected to pass overwhelmingly.
Lee said that more time to review the bill is “not an unreasonable request, given that you‘re dealing with legislation that’s over 2,000 pages long and that’s likely to cost somewhere in the neighbourhood of a quarter of a trillion dollars.
“That is a lot of money, and the way in which we spend it will undoubtedly have profound implications not just for years, but for decades to come.”
Some Republicans, including Lee, are balking at the extent to which the legislation, estimated as costing around $200 billion, would put the federal government in charge of financing tech innovation; the bill would earmark up to US$100 billion over five years for basic and advanced tech research and another US$10 billion to create new technology hubs across the country.