VIDEO: CAPITO BLASTS NEPA PROCESS, ASKS FOR CLARITY ON TECH HUB APPLICATIONS IN COMMERCE HEARING
Hearing
"Your agency, the Department of Commerce, has run into an unexpected hurdle in implementing CHIPS and that being the NEPA process. Well, I'm on the [Environment and Public Works] Committee, I'm the Ranking Member, and this is an issue. Doesn't matter if it's chip manufacturing, broadband development, transmission, energy exploration, everything is being held up by the NEPA process, the permitting process, and often the ensuing litigation delays that come forward.
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How does this administration, with you as their representative, actually square exempting one industry over another when it's holding up progress of all of it -- national security, energy security, communication, everything? Why would that be a good idea? How can this administration think that's a good idea?"
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I would say to you, energy security is just as important as chip security. I would say transmission in this country is just as important as something that does that manufactures chips. And then, if you're going to manufacture the chips, you've got to mine them and recover them. That means you have to permit the mine. If you look at arsenic, which is used in chips, 97% of that is from China. If you look at cobalt, 70% of that is from China. Rare earth elements, 60% of that is from China, 10% from the United States. Titanium, 86% from Japan. Noble gases are from Russia and Ukraine, but we have these resources in this country, but we can't get these mines to permit. So, how are you going to go from permitting the [Facilitating American-Built Semiconductors] when you can't get the materials permitted? There's a disconnect here.
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I just think it's rather ironic that an administration would actually make an exception for something they consider a marquee plan for them, albeit the best interest of the country, when there's these other things that I think, politically, are more difficult to touch. That they wouldn't look for the streamlining of permitting, which should be fair and even across the board, without giving up any environmental controls. I sit on the committee that does this, I've been very strong on air and water all the way through, but there's a better way to do it.
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I do, obviously, have my West Virginia Tech Hub application in and we're all putting our foot on the scale for our own projects. I understand the program requires one-third of Tech Hub grants and designations must significantly benefit small and rural communities. So, that means one out of three Tech Hubs designations under Phase Two would be awarded to rural communities? Is that a safe statement?"
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