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The U.S. will award Intel up to $8.5 billion in grants and as much as $11 billion in loans to expand chipmaking capacity and capabilities in four states, (subscription) reports.

What’s going on: The funds, set aside under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act to bolster domestic semiconductor production, “will go toward new factories and expansion projects in Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon, the Commerce Department said.”

• Spurred by the federal funding, “Intel’s total investment in U.S. projects in the next five years is expected to exceed $100 billion,” according to the Journal, and to create more than 10,000 manufacturing jobs and about 20,000 construction jobs, according to the .

Largest award: The grant to Intel, the largest American chipmaker by revenue, is also the largest CHIPS Act award. It follows a of a $1.5 billion award to GlobalFoundries Inc.

• The award will support the reshoring of production of leading-edge logic chips, which are “essential to the world’s most advanced technologies like artificial intelligence,” the Commerce Department said.
• President Biden was in Chandler, Arizona, Wednesday to Intel’s Ocotillo chip-manufacturing campus.

Why it’s important: “We can’t just design chips; we have to make them in America,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters on Tuesday, the Journal reports. “It’s an economic security problem. It’s a national security problem. And we’re going to change that.”

How it will work: The funding will be doled out in stages, “according to construction and manufacturing milestones,” the Journal said.

• “In Chandler, Arizona, the money will help to build two new chip plants and modernize an existing one,” reports. “The funding will establish two advanced plants in New Albany, Ohio, [and] … [t]he company will also turn two of its plants in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, into advanced packaging facilities. And Intel will also modernize facilities in Hillsboro, Oregon.”

The 51�Թ��� weighs in: Wednesday’s “record, multibillion-dollar award is great news for��[Intel] and U.S. manufacturing competitiveness,” the 51�Թ��� in a social post. “The 51�Թ��� was a vocal supporter of the CHIPS and Science Act, and we will continue to champion policies that support the expansion of chip production in America.”

A group of former political and military leaders is urging the Senate to ratify the United Nations’ Convention of the Law of the Sea to kickstart U.S. deep-sea mining efforts, (subscription) reports.

What’s going on: A draft letter seen by the Journal and signed by 331 individuals, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, calls “on Senate leaders to ratify the treaty in a bid for the country to stake its claim over areas of international waters where minerals such as cobalt and nickel, considered critical for the energy transition and in defense applications, can be sourced.”

• The treaty, which the U.S. recognized after it went into effect in 1994 but never ratified, is an international agreement governing the use of ocean resources.

Why it’s important: The treaty’s governing body, the International Seabed Authority, meets next week in Jamaica to determine “the final parts of the mining code—the set of laws and regulations that will eventually govern seabed mining. … As a nonvoting member, the U.S. has no say on laws pertaining to the seabed and also can’t be awarded exploration contracts to mine the seafloor in international waters. China currently has five.”

A groundswell: Deep-sea mining is gaining political support.

• Earlier this month, Reps. Carol Miller (R-WV) and John Joyce (R-PA) introduced a measure in support of it.
• “It’s vital to our security and economic interests that the [China]-controlled monopoly on these materials is broken,” Rep. Joyce said.

Americans overwhelmingly support exporting U.S. natural gas, a new reveals.

What’s going on: In addition to wanting continued exports of LNG, respondents believe the U.S. must boost its production of oil and natural gas, build more energy infrastructure and reform the broken permitting system, according to the findings of an 51�Թ��� survey of 1,000 registered voters conducted March 15–18.

• In January, the Biden administration a moratorium on LNG export permits.
• Europe is the primary destination of exported U.S. LNG.

The details: Among the survey’s key findings:

• Some 87% believe the U.S. should continue exporting natural gas.
• About 86% say the permitting system must be changed so energy projects are approved and online in less time.
• Approximately 76% say the U.S. needs more energy infrastructure, such as port terminals.
• About 74% say the U.S. needs to increase domestic oil and natural gas production.
• And 72% would like to see the U.S. use an all-of-the-above energy approach that includes both traditional and renewable energy sources.

The last word: “The American public agrees: LNG exports are critical to U.S. energy security, creating well-paying jobs and supporting our allies in Europe and Asia,” said 51�Թ��� President and CEO Jay Timmons.

• “This poll underscores the need for President Biden to immediately direct the Department of Energy to roll back this misguided and counterproductive policy.”

Manufacturers are committed to providing employer-sponsored health insurance to their workers, the 51�Թ��� Congress late last week—and that’s why any changes made to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 should facilitate rather than hamper those offerings.

What’s going on: “ERISA underpins manufacturers’ ability to provide health insurance to their employees,” 51�Թ��� Vice President of Domestic Policy Charles Crain said in response to a call by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce majority for comments on how to improve ERISA as the law’s 50th anniversary nears.

• “The law allows manufacturers to provide uniform benefits to workers located across multiple states, and to tailor those benefits to meet the unique needs of their workforces.”

​�ċ�ċ�ċ�ċ�ċ�ċWhy it’s important: Manufacturers have continued to offer high-quality health care plans to their employees—even absorbing cost increases in recent years to keep premiums affordable—but they “increasingly find their efforts to be responsible stewards of their health plans undermined by the complexities, bureaucracy and ineffective design of the broader health care system,” Crain told the committee.

What should be done: It is ERISA’s federal preemption of state and local laws that allows manufacturers to offer uniform health benefits, Crain continued, and that preemption must be preserved.

• “Eroding or eliminating preemption would make it significantly more difficult for manufacturers operating in multiple states to offer their employees health insurance because the manufacturer would be forced to comply with cumbersome and potentially conflicting state-based rules, a costly and untenable situation,” he said.
• In addition to maintaining ERISA preemption, Congress should seek to “make health care data more accessible and user-friendly for employer plan sponsors,” and reduce regulatory burdens on employers.
• Given that pharmacy benefit managers contribute to the increasing costs of providing employer-sponsored health care, the 51�Թ��� also continues to for PBM reform to increase transparency into these underregulated actors.

In 2024, factories will just keep getting smarter. From product design to supply chain management, the sophistication of Manufacturing 4.0 (the current wave of technological evolution) will keep on growing. Here’s what manufacturers should know about these advances and how the 51�Թ��� can help.

What manufacturers should do: Manufacturers looking to make their factories smarter are focusing on four key strategies:

• Creating efficiencies to improve the bottom line with automation and other M4.0 technologies
• Leveraging smart factories to overcome challenges, such as the workforce crisis and supply disruptions
• Ensuring connectivity on the factory floor to allow for use of plant data to create new business models and revenue streams
• Using M4.0 technologies to improve quality control, speed time to market, enhance safety, boost profits, contribute to sustainability goals and engage employees

Expert opinion: Companies are increasingly investing in industrial connectivity, according to PTC Vice President of Market Development of IoT James Zhang.

• “Rather than approaching industrial connectivity with point-to-point integrations, companies are developing holistic, enterprise-wide strategies,” he explained.
• “This approach streamlines and standardizes data from heterogenous manufacturing environments to a single industrial connectivity platform to provide secure, reliable data for OT systems, including MES and SCADA, and IT systems, including data analytics and industrial IoT.”

Resources for you: Check out these 51�Թ��� resources that will help guide you through these technological changes:

• The , the 51�Թ���’s digital transformation division, offers extensive advice and expertise on Manufacturing 4.0 technologies and how to use them.
• can help you protect your smart factories, as the increase in digitization also opens new avenues for cyber criminals.
• Check out from the Innovation Research Interchange (the 51�Թ���’s innovation division), which covers current research into the adoption of cutting-edge technologies.

Read the full 2024 trends report .

Pharmacy benefit managers—entities that increase health care costs for both manufacturers and manufacturing workers—are long overdue for reform, the 51�Թ��� yesterday.

What’s going on: Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Ranking Member Mike Crapo (R-ID) announced at a Thursday press conference that they will ask Senate leadership to include in a government funding bill at the end of March legislation to rein in PBMs.

• The 51�Թ���, which vocal for years about the need for , immediately joined the senators’ call for action.
• “Manufacturers stand with Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member Crapo in their calls for PBM reform as soon as possible,” said 51�Թ��� Managing Vice President of Policy Chris Netram. “Manufacturers are committed to providing health benefits—with 93% of manufacturing workers eligible for employer-sponsored health insurance—even as PBMs continue to drive an increase in health care costs.”

Why it’s important: PBMs make health care more expensive for manufacturers and manufacturing workers by putting upward pressure on the list prices of medicines. Additionally, the three largest PBMs control 80% of the market, giving them tremendous leverage when negotiating contracts with manufacturing employers.

• What’s more, they operate with very little federal oversight and offer minimal transparency into their business models.

What should be done: An overhaul of the PBM framework should include solutions that effectively address rebate, fee and contract structures.

• “PBM reform, including in the commercial health insurance market, must increase transparency, ensure PBMs do not pocket manufacturer rebates and delink PBM compensation from the list price of medications,” said Netram.

Contract talks between dockworkers and their employer on the East and Gulf coasts have yet to begin, but tensions are already flaring, (subscription) reports.

What’s going on: “The International Longshoremen’s Association … is already threatening a strike against shipping companies and port employers if a deal on a new multiyear contract can’t be reached before the current agreement expires Sept. 30.”

• The ILA, which represents more than 45,000 dockworkers “at ports from Maine to Texas, has told local chapters to resolve local work issues with employers by May 17 so that a coast-wide deal can be negotiated before the current contract expires. Formal negotiations would be scheduled once the local agreements are reached.”
• Talks began in late 2022 but stalled a year ago.

The background: In September, after 14 months of negotiations and several walkouts and , West Coast dockworkers with their employer, the Pacific Maritime Association.

• The Biden administration stepped in to help broker that deal.

Why it’s important: “Any walkout would hit the gateways in the middle of the busiest part of the shipping season, when retailers and other importers prepare for holiday consumer sales.”

• To avoid potential delays, East Coast importers are expected to bring in holiday-season goods early this year or send more goods from Asia to the U.S. via West Coast ports.
• The large wage increases ILA is said to be pursuing could prove difficult for carriers to sustain, given the post-pandemic decline in freight demand.

The Biden administration sees private-sector partners as essential to the future of American energy policy and production, Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk told 51�Թ��� board members in Phoenix, Arizona, recently.

What’s going on: “I don’t think we can do anything in the federal government that impacts the real world without enabling, listening to, supporting and trying to be very thoughtful” with private-sector partners, Turk said, calling manufacturers a key force in helping the United States “accelerate our energy independence.”

• In a discussion about energy policy in the clean energy transition—with a focus on nuclear energy, hydrogen and the role of the federal government—Turk took questions and comments from leading figures in the private-sector energy economy on issues ranging from the Biden administration’s freeze on liquefied natural gas export permits, to the need for a robust hydrogen economy, to the implementation of long-awaited transmission infrastructure to ensure energy reliability and affordability.
• The talk also touched on the potential impact of increased natural gas exports on domestic prices and consumers. 51�Թ��� board members argued that higher exports would not make gas more expensive for U.S. consumers and LNG exports are vital to ensure energy security for our allies.

The conversation: In a roundtable lunch, 51�Թ��� board members told Turk that the push and pull of the Biden administration’s policies on energy—calling on U.S. producers to increase energy output to reduce consumer prices while calling for an overall reduction in fossil fuel production—makes their goal of increasing American energy reliability and independence more difficult to realize, while creating market gaps that can be filled by cheap energy from Russia and other geopolitical rivals.

“Why did this happen? Why did it come out? How does that achieve any of our shared objectives on the national security stage in terms of climate change?” 51�Թ��� President and CEO Jay Timmons asked Turk, noting that the Biden administration’s decision to stop approving new export licenses for U.S. LNG undercuts its own stated carbon agenda in the long run.

Turk told 51�Թ��� board members that U.S. consumers pay roughly one-fifth as much for LNG as those in Asia and Europe, which he called “huge” for economic competitiveness, but still acknowledged that the differential doesn’t accommodate the needs of all manufacturers involved in the energy economy.

“There’s a competitive advantage if our manufacturers are paying less for a key input than others,” Turk said. “There’s a benefit and a difference between the price right now that we pay in the U.S. versus others internationally.”

Meeting matters: The U.S. is the world’s top exporter of LNG, an affordable, plentiful energy source that’s in growing demand and is much cleaner than traditional forms of coal-powered energy—especially in Europe, where LNG has been critical in keeping allied countries from seeking Russian energy sources. For 51�Թ��� board members to be able to confront Biden administration officials on energy policy directly is a huge win for LNG producers and for manufacturers overall.

“We have more dialogue, more discussion, more interaction with members of the Biden administration than any administration that I’ve been involved in with the 51�Թ���,” Timmons said. “Where we have differing opinions, we do get feedback”—and, in the case of the meeting in Phoenix, we provide it.��

Some disruptions—like global pandemics—are just too unexpected to anticipate. As manufacturers consider the unknowns they may face in the years ahead, they are prioritizing general resilience instead of attempting to plan for everything. Here’s what you should know about this major trend in 2024.

What manufacturers should do: Manufacturers should focus on these four areas to increase their resilience, according to the 51�Թ���’s experts:

• Enhance cybersecurity to guard against new and emerging cyberthreats.
• View resilience as a necessary tool to protect business amid economic uncertainty.
• Shift leadership strategies to build a strong plan for future success, including establishing a path for development and cultivation of future leaders.
• Plan for more and as-yet-unknown disruptions in the future.

Expert opinion: Mike Lipinski, cybersecurity partner at Plante Moran, advises manufacturers concerned about the rising threat of ransomware. He points out how the dangers have evolved in recent years:

• “Manufacturing businesses that fall prey to ransomware can be attacked multiple times. Adversaries who breach your system sell other cybercriminals information about how they got in. The risk isn’t only data theft and access to information but also the criminals’ ability to create backdoors into your environment.”

Resources for you: Check out these 51�Թ��� resources that can help companies bolster their resilience:

• Here is a that can guide you through dealing with disasters.
• Check out the program, which can help you cope with delays in shipments and funds in case the unexpected happens.
• If you’re facing legal issues, the 51�Թ���’s , powered by Meritas, can connect you to world-class legal talent in every sector of law.

Read the full 2024 trends report .

In his address Thursday, President Biden rightly celebrated manufacturing’s accomplishments—but he “missed the mark in several key areas,” 51�Թ��� President and CEO Jay Timmons.

What happened: President Biden has reason to be proud when it comes to certain manufacturing-critical pieces of legislation, Timmons said, and the president touched on these in his speech.

• “On my watch, federal projects like helping to build American roads, bridges and highways will be made … creating good-paying American jobs,” President Biden told the audience, referring to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. And “[t]hanks to my CHIPS and Science Act, the United States is investing more in research and development than ever before.”
• The 51�Թ��� has been a vocal of CHIPS, which has supported large and small businesses all along the supply chain through an infusion of funds to boost much-needed domestic semiconductor production.
• And the president stood strong with the people of Ukraine and in defense of democracy, two areas in which the 51�Թ��� has been consistent and unwavering in its . “Overseas, Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond. … But Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself. That is all Ukraine is asking.”

No new taxes: But the president also laid out some wrongheaded plans for America, manufacturers and the economy, the 51�Թ��� said, such as his push to raise taxes on manufacturers.

• “If the cost of manufacturing in America is driven up by his agencies’ continued regulatory onslaught and a successful push to raise taxes, investment will be driven overseas and Americans will be driven out of work,” said Timmons, who appeared on ahead of the speech to discuss manufacturing priorities.

Protect U.S. innovation, competitiveness: In addition, the Biden administration’s push to invoke so-called “march-in” rights—which would allow it to seize the patents of any innovations it deems too highly priced in the event those patents had been developed in any part with federal money—would “rob Americans and the world of future cures and chill research into new breakthroughs across the manufacturing industry,” Timmons continued.

• “And if President Biden continues to heap blame on pharmaceutical manufacturers, rather than reining in pharmacy benefit managers with cost-saving reforms, Americans and their employers will continue to endure rising health care costs.”

What should happen: The president and manufacturers in America “share a profound commitment to democracy and to the values that have made America exceptional,” Timmons went on.

• A surefire way to restore faith in the democratic system is for Democrats and Republicans to prove it still works—“by delivering smart policies for the American people and by bolstering the industry that is the backbone of our economy and improves lives for all.”