Casten Applauds CHIPS Taxpayer Protections
Washington, D.C. — The United States Department of Commerce has announced a Notice of Funding Opportunity for Commercial Fabrication Facilities that includes taxpayer protections advocated for by U.S. Congressman Sean Casten (IL-06).
“CHIPS funds should not create windfalls for companies that receive them,” said Rep. Sean Casten. “I have long urged the Department of Commerce to use its full authority to prevent CHIPS recipients from misusing taxpayer dollars by directly or indirectly funding buybacks and other shareholder distributions. I’m pleased to see Secretary Raimondo has implemented guardrails for this funding opportunity, and I look forward to continuing our work together to ensure appropriate protections around future uses of CHIPs funds.”
As part of the Notice of Funding Opportunity, the Department of Commerce announced guardrails for funding that incentivize companies to refrain from stock buybacks, encourage investment in the U.S. semiconductor industry, and help ensure public funds are not used to enrich corporate executives. You can read more about the taxpayer protections implemented by the Department of Commerce here.
Representative Casten has led the call for ensuring that strong guardrails are in place to protect taxpayers’ investment in strengthening our domestic semiconductor and technology manufacturing and that these funds are not used to enrich corporations and their executives. In June 2022, Casten and Senators Warren and Sanders sent a letter to congressional conferees stressing the importance of strong guardrails to ensure that funding for the CHIPS Act is invested in workers and communities as intended, instead of enriching corporate executives. Casten and Warren followed this with letters urging the Department of Commerce to prevent stock buybacks in October 2022 and February 2023.
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