Senate Votes to Proceed to Consideration of HR 4521 – COMPETES Act

Yesterday, the Senate voted to close debate on the motion to begin consideration of HR 4521, the America COMPETES Act of 2022. The vote was a moderately bipartisan 66 to 35. There have not yet been any amendments submitted for the bill.

The House passed the bill last month with a nearly party-line vote of vote of 222 to 210. This level of Republican opposition would normally mean that there would be little chance of a successful cloture vote in the Senate. Seventeen Republican votes in the Senate yesterday versus 1 Republican vote in the House would seem to show that there is a much larger appetite in the Senate to consider support for technology (this bill is touted as a biotechnology bill, but there is support for other technology as well, including cybersecurity) in the Senate than in the House. Of course, the Senate did pass a similar bill last year (S 1260), but that bill contained significant anti-China provisions that would be expected to draw support from Republicans.

It will be interesting to see if any amendments to this bill are considered. That would require the bill to go back to the House for further consideration or would require a conference committee to work out the differences. I had suspected that the Senate would substitute language from S 1260 for the House language in this bill, and that is still a possibility.