Idaho’s lawmakers in D.C. vote against Micron, bringing manufacturing back to the U.S.

In case you are wondering how your Idaho senators and congressmen are representing you and the state of Idaho with the flurry of legislation passing Congress these days, it’s nothing but bad news.

All four of them, Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch and Reps. Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson — in a fit of partisan spite — voted against Micron’s expansion in Idaho and the possibility of new jobs for Idahoans and against checking China’s growing power in the semiconductor industry by bringing manufacturing back to the states.

China, Taiwan and S. Korea have moved into the semiconductor space that the United States still dominates, but too much of that production by U.S. companies has been exported to other countries like China.

With Micron playing a major role in chip production and with China challenging the U.S. in semiconductor production, President Biden crafted a new industrial policy in the Creating Helpful Incentives for the Production of Semiconductors for America (CHIPS) bill. It recognizes that the U.S. has become too reliant on foreign producers of semiconductors heavily subsidized by their governments. It provides financial incentives for American companies to build and expand in the U.S. but with a prohibition against funding any company that engages in material expansion of semiconductor manufacturing in China or “other countries of concern.”

And if that is not enough reason to support the bill, it also provides funding for workforce training for domestic semiconductor manufacturing, research and development funding for communications technology security, supply chain research and innovation and funding for research and innovation in national defense.

Idaho’s Micron Technology is an obvious beneficiary of this effort to bring manufacturing back to the states. Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra and Boise Mayor Lauren McLean attended President Biden’s signing of the bill in the White House recently.

Homegrown Micron employs over 6,000 in the Boise region and is the largest for-profit employer of Idahoans, so it was no surprise to see its CEO and the Boise mayor in attendance at the signing.

McLean wrote a column for the Idaho Statesman recently underscoring the importance of supporting the CHIPS bill for Micron to remain a significant employer in Idaho and an industry leader across the globe. Mehrotra also wrote a guest opinion for the Statesman pointing out that the U.S. invented semiconductor technology only to cede leadership to other countries in recent years. The CHIPS legislation was specifically designed to reverse course.

With Micron planning a major expansion, Idaho has a keen interest in what Micron is calling a massive manufacturing facility — a mega-fab.

The Idaho Legislature stepped up to the plate last session when it passed a law exempting the sales tax from building materials used to construct, expand or modernize semiconductor plants in Idaho, an obvious message to Micron that Idaho firmly favors an Idaho location for its new facility.

Gov. Brad Little signed the bill into law, and he joined several governors in a bipartisan letter to congressional leadership urging support of the bill they said would restore American domestic manufacturing superiority.

Given the strategic importance of the bill, both from the standpoint of building more manufacturing plants here in the U.S. and the more critical connection to Micron’s plans, you would assume that Idaho’s congressional delegation would be on board with such a critical vote essential for Idaho to remain in the hunt regarding Micron’s expansion plans.

To the contrary, that is an assumption you could make only decades ago, before the Republican Party was hijacked by the radical right who in Idaho shape the compliant minds of its four D.C. lawmakers into partisan pawns. Puppets of Idaho’s right-wing fringe, they seldom if ever join in bipartisan roll calls even when in the interest of national security and Idaho’s own economy.

Conservative Texan Republicans didn’t look at it that way.

Texas Republican Gov. Gregg Abbott, a partisan of the highest order, expressed his support of the bill, claiming it would create jobs for Texans. While Risch and Crapo deserted Idaho on the roll call vote, their colleague in the Senate, John Cornyn, led the effort to pass the law. And two House Republicans from Texas voted for the bill.

Hmmm. Now why couldn’t Idaho’s congressional delegation see the obvious advantage the bill offers states like Texas and Idaho?

The only answer is the current state of Idaho’s Republican Party, which nominates and elects those who are singularly devoted to reelection and takes its cues from the Idaho Freedom Foundation and rank-and-file partisans who have no responsibility for governing, no responsibility for representing a state in our nation’s capital nor any apparent concern for the success of the Idaho economy and national security.

You would think the pandemic alone and our reliance on China for basic health protections like face masks would be enough to vote American, to vote for a bill specifically designed to bring jobs home and protect Americans against a future moment when we cannot access the critical ingredients of a robust supply chain. No, Idaho’s lawmakers would rather sit idly by as China fuels its semiconductor industry with all the government support required to beat the U.S. at its game.

Republican lawmakers who voted against the bill dredged up tired and worn arguments about how they will not subsidize corporations with your tax dollars.

Risch and Crapo complained the bill added “unrelated” funding to the semiconductor bill. Unrelated? What they call unrelated is significant research funding for supply chain innovation and telecommunications security vital to our national security. Think about that the next time you attempt to buy a car, computer or other product now waiting for semiconductors to complete the manufacturing process.

If the CHIPS bill was a Republican president’s proposal, we would be hearing the entire Idaho congressional delegation crowing about how important the bill was for our national security. And Crapo, who whines about the national debt when Democratic presidents are in office, seems to forget it when Republicans take over. The roll calls in both chambers were most likely carefully constructed roll calls to give some Republicans the green light to vote for the bill, but others were to vote “no” just so it did not look like an overwhelming bipartisan victory for President Biden.

The so-called “unrelated” funding Risch and Crapo complain about is in the same vein as federal government funding that fueled the creation of the internet. The World Wide Web was invented by researchers working on a government grant, and the GPS system now part of our daily lives originated in a partnership between the federal government and the private sector, the same approach the CHIPS bill employs — incentivizing researchers with funding to encourage supply chain innovation, domestic manufacturing and national security technology improvements, among several priorities.

With China breathing down our necks thanks to heavily subsidized semiconductor manufacturing, standing on arguments that do nothing but play into the strategic plans of our international competitors makes no sense. The CHIPS bill is as American as apple pie and as critical to Idaho as potatoes, but Idaho’s congressional delegation was more concerned about offending Trump voters in the next primary than building a stronger economy for their state and nation.

This story was originally published August 21, 2022 at 4:00 AM.