Friday, October 4th 2024
US Government to Allow Some Semiconductor Fabs to Circumvent Environmental Laws
According to a recent Reuters report, the US government, under Biden's administration, will allow a few criteria-matching semiconductor fabs to circumvent environmental protection laws. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed legislation that effectively enables these fabs to not follow the strict regulations designed for maximum preservation of the environment. The Semiconductor Industry Association has noted that without this new legislation, companies that are extending facilities on US soil would be significantly slowed down due to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969. The CHIPS Act's primary force driver isn't just domestic production but near-future completion so that future geopolitical shifts don't impact US companies. The speed of getting permits to manufacture advanced chips is essential for every CHIPS Act recipient company, like Intel, Samsung, TSMC, and Micron.
There are three conditions that exempt semiconductor fabs from NEPA review:
Source:
Reuters
- (A) the activity described in the application for that project has commenced not later than December 31, 2024;
- (B) the Federal financial assistance provided is in the form of a loan or loan guarantee; or
- (C) the Federal financial assistance provided, excluding any loan or loan guarantee, comprises not more than 10 percent of the total estimated cost of the project.
36 Comments on US Government to Allow Some Semiconductor Fabs to Circumvent Environmental Laws
Yeah, I'm not a fan of this either, but I have to assume there was a rationale behind it I don't completely understand. I just hope it isn't mostly driven by dollar signs.
It really translates into what is in the news article: regulators, authorities and courts will be barred from doing anything regarding violations that are otherwise law, all in the name of "the country's economy".
above the next five combined.Never mind, they contaminate more than 140 entire countries. Nothing new here.theconversation.com/us-military-is-a-bigger-polluter-than-as-many-as-140-countries-shrinking-this-war-machine-is-a-must-119269
But if there were environmental limits on water usage / damage to land / habitats due to changes in water in environment that the government can wave away more easily and doesn't necessarily have any party who can try to be compensated (e.g. you can't lose a lawsuit to a bird/animal), I'm sure they will happily go down that road.
Although, it may also be other simpler less malicious things they could ignore regarding say erecting solar panels around the area or wind turbines, etc.... wishful thinking maybe but you never know.
Now we need to get something done fast for defense purposes we need to lift some of the more onerous regs to get it done (a bunch of environmental reviews that take 3 years each to squeeze through the beurocracy).
I'm generally ok with this, since we tend to go for 100% when really 80% would be keeping people and most animals safe with far less time and effort involved.
Next local and state governments need to do this for housing.
On the other hand if these environmental laws were preventing useful activities such as producing chips in the manner of TSMC then perhaps exceptions should be made where the impact is most minimal.
Is it worse than not being built at all? Depends.
Jobs, independent manufacturing.
This wouldn’t have happened in the first place if the US didn’t become so anti-manufacturing, lying to consumers about cheaper goods and using that money to grease the palms of government.
If you don’t want to see the same thing happen in food and goods we need to stop shopping at Walmart and Amazon so much and continue to support local businesses.
happened in every first world country. That cat is so long out the bag, there's no point pointing fingers anymore. It's time to fix it, and this is probably a good step.
I would be really surprised if TSMC could apply to pollute in the USA…
We didn't renew our big box club membership, and instead are shopping at local employees owned stores. Unless it's something absurdly priced (our HVAC filters) we don't use Amazon for anything.