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Thank you so much for joining our Punchbowl News event with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo yesterday. The conversation focused on the future of American innovation and the role of technology policy in shaping U.S. leadership in science and research. Dr. Darío Gil, IBM senior vice president and director of research, joined Anna and Jake afterward for a fireside chat about the global chip shortage.

Here are our key takeaways from the event:

→ Raimondo pledged that the United States would be “ready to go at a moment’s notice” in the event of a Russian invasion.

U.S. government officials are warning a Russian invasion of Ukraine is growing more likely by the day as Russian troops mass on the nation’s western border. President Joe Biden has also cautioned that a Russian invasion could affect fuel prices in the United States. 

Here’s what Raimondo told us about how U.S. economic interests might be affected by Russian military action.

“The president has made clear that we’ll be ready to go at a moment’s notice if Putin does invade. It’s hard to know exactly how disruptive it would be to our economy. Obviously, you worry about fuel price increases. And so we’re already starting to think about what can we do to surge capacity, working with our allies, working with companies to make sure that we are ready to increase supply if necessary. In terms of using any of our economic tools, the president’s been very clear with me, [Treasury] Secretary [Janet] Yellen, if this happens, we want a severe swift, immediate economic retaliation, and the way to make that effective and also not hurt our economy is to work with our allies. So we’re spending a huge amount of time, myself included, working reaching out to our allies all around the world. … 

“We’re monitoring this every minute of every day… In America, most of our infrastructure assets are run by the private sector, private companies. So what we are doing is constant communication with private companies, asking them to alert us to anything they see, any evidence of a potential attack, get us that information right away. We’re, of course, hardening our own systems at every agency. But it’s just this constant communication with the biggest private sector companies, with the private sector companies that run America’s infrastructure, to make sure that we have this seamless information flow, so that we’re protected, but also we can react immediately if something happens.”

→ Ever since Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) shot down Biden’s Build Back Better Act in late 2021, Washington has been eagerly awaiting any news on a potential resurrection of a social spending package.

Raimondo acknowledged to us that the Build Back Better Act, as Biden originally introduced it, is dead. But the Commerce secretary maintained that core priorities of the legislation — reducing prescription drug prices, affordable child care, climate change policies — could be salvaged.

“I think about it less as you know, the ‘Build Back Better’ moniker and just like, well, what’s the president’s agenda? What do we have to get done here? Reducing prescription drug costs for American people, bringing about pre-K and affordable child care so we can be competitive with other developed countries, and to get women back to work. Climate. So I think it’s fair to say that the president’s initial proposal is not going to be enacted, as was proposed. But, you know, will his agenda be enacted? You know, the planks that I just said, I think it will be.”

→ A major topic of conversation was the dueling Senate and House bills to address chip manufacturing and U.S. competitiveness vis-a-vis China. 

Back in June 2021, the United States Innovation and Competition Act passed the Senate with broad bipartisan support. But the companion House bill, the America COMPETES Act, received just one Republican vote earlier this month. 

The House and Senate have not yet started conference negotiations to reconcile the differences in the two bills. Despite the lack of current action, Raimondo said she is talking frequently with Hill Republicans about the legislation, including two conversations yesterday, with Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Todd Young (R-Ind.). Those two were instrumental in drafting and passing the Senate bill supporting U.S. chip manufacturing last summer. 

The legislation won’t be done by the State of the Union on March 1 — as the administration originally envisioned — but Raimondo reiterated that Memorial Day is too long to wait. 

“I’m not waiting for the [formal House-Senate] conference. We are in pre-conference meetings right now. Today. Tomorrow. I’ve talked to [House Energy and Commerce] Chairman [Frank] Pallone, [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi, [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer, [GOP Sen. Roger] Wicker, [Democratic Sen. Maria] Cantwell, [Oklahoma GOP Rep.] Frank Lucas. Today I’m talking to Cornyn, Todd Young.”

→ We pressed Raimondo to identify the major differences that needed to be resolved between the House-passed COMPETES Act and the Senate’s Make It In America legislation. Here’s part of what she told us:

“In the House version and in the Senate version, there’s a supply chain office to be set up in the Department of Commerce — in both versions. But they’re different. The Senate version has no money. The House version has authorization for 45 billion [dollars]. The House version is more robust. They’re gonna have to work through that. But fundamentally, there’s in both bills, setting up a supply chain office at the Department of Commerce, huge bipartisan support.”

→ Republicans have griped that the House-passed COMPETES Act is too partisan and was overly controlled by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Raimondo had choice words for GOP members of Congress who are complaining about the House bill. It’s clear the Biden administration has little patience on this issue.

“So get to the conference table and figure it out. This is Congress. This is the way it works. I mean you can’t pretend to be surprised. This wasn’t the first time in the history of Congress that the bill comes out … in a partisan way where there’s some things in there Republicans can’t vote for.”

Additional takeaways from Dr. Darío Gil’s portion:

→ Gil called for Congress to remain bipartisan in its approach to science and technology. The IBM executive said that in an increasingly divided political environment, STEM funding and policy has consistently drawn support from both sides of the aisle. The overwhelmingly partisan American COMPETES vote in the House, however, illustrates the obstacles to a bipartisan consensus.

“I actually think the science agenda of the nation is one that has broad bipartisan support. And we need to all stay committed to these long term trends to reverse it systematically, year after year, and also, public sector and private sector coming together to continue to invest in R&D. And I think if we do that, we’re gonna have a very bright future to get that done.”

→ Passing the CHIPS Act is critical to American innovation, Gil said. Gil noted that the United States has fallen behind its foreign counterparts with regards to microchip manufacturing. Now, the vast majority of chips are manufactured in Taiwan.

“I think we’re witnessing the most exciting time in the world of computing in the last 60 years. If we commit to get it done, and we fund it appropriately, and we mobilize the STEM capacity of the nation, we’re going to have a tremendously successful decade, you know, and beyond for American technology. But it is a moment of resolve and will to reverse something that has been eroding for a long time. But it’s the moment to get it done. And I really think it can be a historic moment for science and technology [research and development], to get that done, and also in federal agencies like NSF, to amplify their mission and broader the impact that they can have on the American economy.”

A big thank you to IBM for partnering with us on this event. Watch the full conversation here. 

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