President Joe Biden will travel to North Carolina on Thursday to tout his administration’s efforts to strengthen supply chains and urge Congress to reconcile their differences on the Bipartisan Innovation Act, a bill that will boost domestic semiconductor production and bolster competitiveness with China.
The president will travel to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the largest of the United States’ historically Black colleges and universities, where he will call on Congress to quickly pass the bill, which will also invest in STEM education and support the creation of a Regional Technology Hub program, among other initiatives.
“The Bipartisan Innovation Act will make record investments in emerging technologies and American manufacturing,” a Biden Administration official said.
“As the president has said, we used to invest almost 2% of our GDP in research and development,” the official added. “We don’t now, but China is.”
The House and Senate both passed their own versions of the bills in widely bipartisan fashion and now must come to a consensus in a conference committee, a joint delegation of lawmakers from both chambers.
“With demand for chips at an all-time high, it’s crucial that we bring chip production – and it’s good-quality manufacturing jobs – back home to the United States,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a statement. “This is essential to our national and economic security.”
The president is also set to address his administration’s efforts to lower inflation, which hit its highest level in 40 years last month, in large part due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its impact on global energy and food markets, as well as rising housing costs.
His trip to North Carolina comes just days after he visited Iowa, where he announced that the Environmental Protection Agency will allow for the sale of biofuels with larger quantities of ethanol in an effort to lower gas prices for Americans.
“I’m here today because homegrown biofuels have a role to play right now, right now, as we work to get prices under control to reduce costs for families,” Biden said Tuesday.
“I want to see facilities like this all over the Midwest, and here’s why: first, it supports farmers and the farm economy,” Biden said following a tour of the POET plant. “Second, it creates good-paying jobs. It’s estimated there are over 400,000 jobs directly and indirectly supported by this industry nationwide. There’s a lot of people, that’s a lot, a lot of paychecks and good, decent paychecks.
“Third, it reduces our reliance on foreign oil. By adding this fuel to our gasoline – 10% or 15% even more stretches the supply,” Biden continued. “And fourth, it gives you a choice at the pump. When you have a choice, you have competition. When you have competition, you have better prices.”
The White House estimates that “E15 [biofuel] can save a family 10 cents per gallon of gas on average,” with many stations selling the fuel at an even greater discount.
“Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has driven up gas prices and food prices all over the world,” the president said at a biofuel processing facility in Menlo, Iowa. “We saw it in today’s inflation data: Seventy percent of the increase in prices in March came from Putin’s price hike in gasoline.”
Biden also said he is pushing Congress to help lower utility bills and prescription drug prices, while also lowering the deficit.
“So, folks, we can do these things without raising a penny in tax on anybody in this hall,” he said. “But even as we work with Congress, I’m not going to wait to take action to help American families. I’m doing everything within my power, by executive orders, to bring down the prices and address the Putin price hike.”
Biden also announced last month that he was tapping the United States’ strategic petrolium reserve to the tune of 1 million barrels per day in an effort to reduce gas prices.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that Biden will meet with robotics and cybersecurity students and will discuss how the Bipartisan Innovation Act “can help build on the remarkable progress we’ve made over the last year in getting our economy back on its feet,” citing the United States’ jobs recovery from the COVID-19 recession and two of the president’s major legislative accomplishments, the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
“Throughout his visit, the President will highlight the domestic manufacturing strategy and regional investments in areas such as advanced manufacturing and clean technology,” Psaki said Wednesday. “He will discuss how Greensboro’s economy and educational institutions are reinventing themselves for legacy industries to 21st century industries and will benefit from the passage of the Bipartisan Innovation Act, which will make historic investments in R&D, innovation, and manufacturing in America.”
“That means stronger supply chains, more manufacturing jobs, and lower prices for consumers as we break up the bottlenecks, like semiconductor chips, that have driven inflation over the last year.,” she added. “473,000 manufacturing jobs have already been created on the President’s watch. He wants to build on that success by passing the Bipartisan Innovation Act to create — to create more good-paying jobs and lower prices for working families.”
North Carolina A&T, the White House said, is the largest producer of African American undergraduates in engineering and with masters degrees in STEM in the country and is the alma mater of Biden’s EPA administrator Michael Regan.
Spectrum News’ Charles Duncan contributed to this report.
