The US has proposed new legislation to earmark $112bn USD for scientific and technological research amid ongoing competition with China, but the bill will be postponed for at least two weeks, American senators and staff members said on Monday.
Senate Republicans have announced the plans would not proceed until after a week-long Senate recess set to end on 10 May.
According to Senator Roger Wicker of the Commerce Committee, lawmakers needed the delay "for some consensus to develop", the report read.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer sponsored the measure along with others to authorise a further $10bn USD for roughly 10 regional technology hubs and build a crisis response programme for tech supply chains amid the ongoing semiconductor shortage hitting the auto and consumer electronics industry.
Further measures included ramping up the deployment of self-driving vehicles proposed by Senators Gary Peters (D-MI) and John Thune (R-SD).
According to legislation sponsor Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI), US dominance in science and technology was "at risk".
“The Chinese Communist Party has used decades of intellectual property theft and industrial espionage to close this technological gap in a way that threatens not only our economic security, but also our way of life”, he said.
The news comes amid several initiatives launched by the US and China, with the former proposing last year a $2tn USD Green New Deal aimed at boosting emerging tech, including new energy vehicles, infrastructure, 5G, and others.
President Biden signed an executive order in late February for a 100-day review of US supply lines across the country.
The Chinese State Council proposed a similar initiative in May last year valued at $1.4tn to decouple from Western technologies, including semiconductors, 5G, artificial intelligence, as well as green energy and infrastructure.
