By President Joe Biden met Wednesday afternoon with executives from big U.S. tech companies, as he continued his push to secure billions of dollars in taxpayer money for semiconductor manufacturing.
HP
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CEO Enrique Lores, Medtronic
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CEO Geoff Martha and Micron
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CEO and President Sanjay Mehrotra took part in the White House meeting, along with Cummins
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COO and President Jennifer Rumsey and executives from Samsung
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and Whirlpool
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In his State of the Union speech last week, Biden had called for Congress to send bipartisan legislation to his desk that would include more than $50 billion in subsidies for chip makers, along with billions more for other industries to build out U.S. manufacturing capacity. The Senate passed its version of such legislation in June, while the House passed its version last month, and negotiators are now attempting to reconcile the two versions of the legislation.
The president reiterated that call at Wednesday’s meeting.
“I’m urging the House and the Senate to work out the differences between their two versions of this bill, and get it to my desk as quickly as you can,” Biden said.
Rumsey, the Cummins COO, said the maker of engines strongly supports increasing domestic production of semiconductors
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“I’ve been spending a lot of time on this semiconductor issue, and it has been a real issue for us for the last 18 months,” she said. “We have not been able to get enough. It has impacted our ability to build and deliver product to our customers.”
Read more: Semiconductor, PC stocks rally after Biden touts importance of U.S. chip manufacturing
Also: Biden’s tech pitch seeks billions for chip manufacturing, online protection for kids
U.S. stocks
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DJIA,
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traded sharply higher Wednesday, with analysts pinning the gains in part on hopes for peace talks that might bring an end to Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
MarketWatch’s Wallace Witkowski contributed to this report.
