Your car, your phone and even your fridge all rely on computer chips to operate, so one local Member of Congress is involved in an effort to boost the short supply of those chips.
Because so many things are now chip-dependent, manufacturing of goods across the board is affected – everything from health care and medical devices to energy equipment and most technology you can think of. It’s not just that there aren’t enough semiconductors to go around. The things we use are designed around specific types of chips, so they’re not interchangeable. In addition, manufacturers say the chips they used to pay $5-10 dollars for now go for $500. They might be able to absorb that in or add it to the cost of a large item, like a tractor, but that added cost would be more noticeable in something like a home appliance.
Democratic Congresswoman Suzan DelBene held a discussion Wednesday with local business leaders, who say they’re desperate for a more steady chip supply. DelBene talked to them about bills to put $52 billion into U.S. chip making, but building a new plant is a multi-billion dollar investment, so Northwest Newsradio asked DelBene if $52 billion would make a dent. She says it’s meant as a jump start – and to attract more private investment. “We need legislation passed as soon as possible,” DelBene says, “because the longer it takes to pass a bill, the longer it is before we get started, and building a new manufacturing facility and getting chips coming off of the lines will take a couple of years, so we want that to start right away.”
DelBene says they’re also working on a tax incentive bill to draw more chip-making to the U.S., what’s known as “re-shoring”, and there’s work with foreign allies to build capacity and redundancy, a practice known as “friend shoring”.
