Every part of Upstate New York, including Genesee County, will benefit from his bill to spur development in computer chip and technology manufacturing, Sen. Charles Schumer said today during an online press conference with reporters from throughout New York.
Upstate has more shovel-ready business park sites than any other region in the nation, and WNY-STAMP is among those sites drawing interest from semiconductor manufacturers with the likely passage of this bill, Schumer said.
"There are a whole number of companies that were thinking of going overseas to Europe or to Asia, that with this bill have now said they're going to locate in the United States," Schumer said in response to a question from The Batavian. "We have some of the great sites including the STAMP site in Batavia and we're going to do everything we can to lure them. And remember, they depend on the Commerce Department to get some grants for this. These are large grants, and I am going to, as Majority Leader, I think, I'll have some say with the Commerce Department."
The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 creates $50 billion in funding designed to provide financial assistance to chip manufacturers and other technology companies to build factories in the United States.
The bill passed the Senate today and Schumer, who authored the bill and has doggedly pursued it for a long time, said it will easily pass in the House of Representatives.
Schumer pushed for passage, he said, because the U.S. must beat China in chip manufacturing and because he believes spurring innovative growth in high-tech will benefit all of New York, especially Upstate New York.
"I wrote this bill with the future of Upstate New York in mind," Schumer said. "The bill creates $50 billion in federal incentives to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the US. And guess what place in America is most suited to get these plants? Upstate New York. There are places in Albany and Syracuse and Western New York that have shovel-ready sites that the big tech companies are already looking at for new chip fabs."
So far, China has been winning the chip manufacturing war, Schumer said. He wants to shift the momentum back to the United States.
"It's time to build our future in Syracuse, not Shanghai; in Buffalo, not Beijing," he said.
He said the odds are high that semiconductor manufacturers are going to look to Upstate New York for their new plants, which will employ thousands of people in high-paying jobs.
"We're gonna go all out and we're going to beat China," Schumer said.
WNY STAMP, located in Alabama near the intersection of Route 77 and Judge Road, is more than 1,100 acres set aside for advanced manufacturing. GCEDC has been pursuing tenants for the park for more than a decade, and after coming close with 1366 Technologies in 2015 (a project that failed, according to sources, because of then Rep. Chris Collins' unwillingness to support it), the IDA succeeded last year when Plug Power agreed to make a $232.7 million investment to build a new hydrogen fuel plant at the site.
Steve Hyde, president and CEO of GCEDC, said the agency is pleased with the passage of the bill.
"Senate Majority Leader Schumer has long-championed upstate New York as the ideal region for critical growth of the domestic semiconductor manufacturing and R&D investments due to our university research and talent, our established and ever-growing semiconductor supply chain, along with our considerable capacity of renewable, reliable, and competitively priced electricity," Hyde said in a statement. "We applaud Senator Schumer for his leadership, and stewardship in getting Congress to pass the Chips and Science Bill, which will be the catalyst to growing the high-tech economy at the Western New York Science & Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park (STAMP) and all across upstate New York."
For all prior coverage of WNY Stamp, click here.
For a press release from Sen. Charles Schumer with more details about the bill, click here.
UPDATE: The Hill is reporting that because of a deal between Sen. Joe Manchin and Sen. Charles Schumer on a reconciliation bill, Republican members of the House of Representatives will now, as of Wednesday evening, oppose the CHIPS bill.
Top photo: Sen. Charles Schumer in a screenshot of today's press conference.
Aerial photo courtesy GCEDC showing Plug Power under construction and the WNY STAMP acreage.
