Washington, DC – Congresswoman Claudia Tenney (NY-22) today (February 4, 2022) released the following statement on the passage of Speaker Pelosi’s partisan America COMPETES Act.

House Democrats, following the lead of Speaker Pelosi, took an area of bipartisan agreement and urgent national need and used it as leverage to cynically push forth unrelated liberal priorities and poison pills. Despite being branded as legislation to compete with a rising China, the bill fails to address the full range of threats and national security concerns posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Instead of addressing critical needs, such as security assistance, export controls, and supporting our allies facing CCP aggression, the America COMPETES Act is full of wasteful spending and new left-wing programs that will only make America less competitive on the world stage. And let’s not forget that the bill was written entirely behind closed doors without any input from Republican members of Congress.

I introduced 10 amendments that would have fixed many of this disastrous bill’s worst provisions. They would have eliminated nonessential spending, added in bipartisan language to support American small manufacturing businesses, and secured our supply chains for critical goods. However, every single one was rejected by House Democrats. I could not, in good conscience, support this partisan sham of an attempt to level the playing field with our greatest threat on the world stage without these and many other much-needed amendments. Democrats in Congress have failed us all today, once again.

According to Rep. Tenney, dangerous provisions of America Competes Act include:  

• Authorizes $8 billion for the Green Climate Fund, a U.N. slush fund that has already sent $100 million to the Chinese Communist Party and fails to include guardrails to prohibit this money from being used for Chinese solar panels, batteries, and other supply chains tainted by forced labor and genocide against the Uyghurs.
• Creates “Climate Change Officers” within the Foreign Service, weakening our diplomats’ focus on core U.S. national interests.
   
• Calls for elevating climate issues in U.S.-China bilateral relations when our focus should be on confronting the military, economic, and diplomatic threats China poses.
   
• Omits core national security tools in the Foreign Affairs’ Committee jurisdiction, including security assistance and export controls, abandoning U.S. allies facing CCP aggression and failing to curtail CCP military modernization and weapons development including hypersonics.
   
• Includes a $45 billion slush fund prioritizing labor unions and other political allies of the Biden administration.

Here is another perspective from National Public Radio:

The House passed a bill Friday (Feb 3) that Democrats say will increase U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and boost American competitiveness with China.

The America Competes Act passed 222-210, largely along party lines.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the bill “will ensure that America is preeminent in manufacturing, innovation and economic strength and can outcompete any nation.”

The bill has a number of provisions, including $52 billion to make chips, $45 billion to improve supply chains for critical items and $160 billion for scientific research and innovation.

House Science Committee Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, told NPR that a major federal infusion in research is badly overdue — especially to help the U.S. go toe-to-toe with China.

“We’ve just got to compete. And we’ve got to hopefully feel like we’re a little step ahead. And that’s really a big goal,” Johnson told NPR. “Because as you know, our society is very different in the kind of freedom versus communism type of behaviors.”

Johnson said the legislation was also aimed at developing talent in the U.S. and fostering innovations in government labs that private companies could tap into for future products. Much of the research pieces in the bill, which has been in the works for years, included input from a range of private industry, academic experts and scientists who argue the U.S. needs a long-term commitment to seeding future breakthroughs that will prevent more jobs and manufacturing from moving overseas.

Liberal priorities, poison pills, CCP aggression, wasteful spending, left-wing programs, partisan sham, slush funds (twice), labor unions. Evidently Rep. Tenney intends to run a divisive campaign in NY-23.