Governors from nine states, led by Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, have sent a letter to top congressional leaders urging them to advance legislation that would provide $52 billion in aid to semiconductor producers and ease a shortage for manufacturers.
The letter, prepared for delivery on Wednesday, to House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and their counterparts in the Senate, Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, asks for swift approval of the CHIPS Act, intended to expand U.S. semiconductor production.
The governors, largely from auto-producing states, made a case that the shortage has taken a brutal toll on the automobile industry, leading to lost production and jobs.
“There is no question that our nation’s automotive manufacturing industry — more than any other sector — has been hit hardest by the global semiconductor shortage,” Whitmer wrote. “Production at auto plants across the country has been idled, impacting more than 575,000 auto-related American jobs.”
Along with Whitmer, the signers were Govs. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Tony Evers of Wisconsin, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Kentucky’s Andy Beshear, Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, Kay Ivey of Alabama, Laura Kelly from Kansas and Gavin Newsom of California. Ivey is a Republican. The others are Democrats.
The chip crisis has hurt profits at automakers including Ford Motor Co. and General Motors. North American plants typically build 17 million vehicles in a year and will have lost 4 million units worth of production in 2021, according to researcher LMC Automotive. Consulting firm Alix Partners has said the shortage has cost the global auto industry $210 billion in revenue.
