US President Joe Biden signed legislation this week that will exempt some of the country’s semiconductor fabs from federal environmental reviews.
The new law will allow companies in receipt of federal funding, such as funds allocated under the CHIPS and Science Act, to avoid facing additional environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA).
Dubbed the “Building Chips in America Act of 2023,” the bipartisan bill was proposed by Democratic Senator Mark Kelly and Republican Senator Ted Cruz. It unanimously passed through the Senate in 2023 before receiving a 257-125 vote in the House.
Supporters of the legislation claim it will allow the chip companies to build their manufacturing facilities quicker, thus allowing the government to realize its ambitions of bolstering the US semiconductor industry in a more timely manner.
However, the law’s opponents warn that if left unchecked, companies could end up exposing communities to potentially hazardous chemicals that are used in the semiconductor manufacturing process.
Prior to Biden’s signing of the legislation, the environmental organization Sierra Club put out a statement urging the President to veto the bill, saying it posed air and water quality risks, particularly from so-called ‘forever chemicals’ – synthetic chemicals such as fluorocarbons or perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that do not break down when released into the environment, and can therefore build up in people or animals over time.
“Rather than circumventing environmental standards, Congress should implement environmental protections to keep communities and workers safe from the hazardous contaminants used in the semiconductor industry,” the group’s statement read.
Proponents of the bill say projects that have made it to the manufacturing stage will have already had to comply with permitting requirements, in addition to federal, state, and local environmental regulations.
Semiconductor manufacturing is an emission-heavy industry, with a report published by think tank Interface earlier this year finding that in the European Union (EU) alone, the level of chip manufacturing the bloc is hoping to foster under its own Chips Act could generate as much greenhouse gas as the chemical, iron and steel, and aviation sectors.
Environmental and sustainability concerns are also being raised about the amount of power consumed by data centers that have deployed GPUs to support AI-intensive workloads, where in the US it has been estimated that 47GW of incremental grid capacity will be needed to serve data center-driven load growth through 2030.
The White House did not offer any additional comment in its press notice of the bill signing, beyond stating the legislation’s purpose and that the President had signed it into law.
