Schumer Delays Vote on Bill to Boost R&D, Confront China
(Bloomberg) -- Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer postponed a vote on passing a bipartisan bill to bolster U.S. economic competitiveness and confront China’s rise as a group of Republican lawmakers delayed the debate.
The Senate will wait to vote on the legislation, which has broad bipartisan support, until lawmakers return from a break on June 8, Schumer said Friday, as a small group of Republican lawmakers bogged down progress by demanding additional amendments and more time to consider the bill.
As part of an agreement with GOP leaders, Schumer said the chamber will vote on whether to move forward with a bill to set up an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, which Republicans are poised to block.
The central element of the competitiveness legislation would authorize plowing more than $100 billion into U.S. research and development and provide $52 billion in emergency spending to aid domestic semiconductor manufacturing.
The bill also contains a wide array of measures directly targeting China on human rights and intellectual property theft, as well as “information warfare and malign influence operations.”
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