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Speaker 2: The vice presidential candidates, Minnesota Governor Tim Walls and Ohio
Speaker 2: Senator Jade Events, they spent a lot of time talking
Speaker 2: about housing during Tuesday Night's presidential debate.
Speaker 3: We in the state invested in making sure our housing
Speaker 3: was the biggest investment that we'd ever made in housing.
Speaker 3: It starts to make it easier. We cut some of
Speaker 3: the red tape. Local folks. Look, we can't do it
Speaker 3: at the federal level, but local folks make it easier
Speaker 3: to build those homes.
Speaker 4: Well, what Donald Trump has said is we have a
Speaker 4: lot of federal lands that aren't being used for anything.
Speaker 4: They're not being used for National Park, They're not being
Speaker 4: used and they could be places where we build a
Speaker 4: lot of housing. And I do think that we should
Speaker 4: be opening up building in this country.
Speaker 2: That was a JD Vance and before that Tim Walls
Speaker 2: at the Tuesday Night a Vice presidential debate on CBS.
Speaker 2: Many people argue that central to the housing crisis in
Speaker 2: the US is zoning, the notion that only certain things
Speaker 2: of certain sizes can be built in certain areas. We've
Speaker 2: got with us the perfect guest to help us understand
Speaker 2: this and to what extent that's true. Sarah Bronan is
Speaker 2: professor of law and here been planning at Cornell University.
Speaker 2: She's the author of a new book. It's called Key
Speaker 2: to the City, How Zoning Shapes our World. She joins
Speaker 2: us from Washington, d C. Professor, good to have you
Speaker 2: with us. Is the housing crisis in the US the
Speaker 2: result of zoning?
Speaker 5: Well, first, thanks for having me. I'm so excited to
Speaker 5: talk about zoning. And I would argue that yes, zoning,
Speaker 5: which is enacted at the local level by maybe thirty
Speaker 5: thousand counties and cities and towns across the country, has
Speaker 5: huge impacts on our housing market and our ability to
Speaker 5: provide affordable and accessible housing to people who need it.
Speaker 2: We're talking about the idea of nimbiism and the idea
Speaker 2: that in certain areas you're only allowed to build a
Speaker 2: single family home of a certain size on a certain
Speaker 2: plot of land. And if Carol, we had zoning for
Speaker 2: more dense housing, we could build more housing and provide
Speaker 2: more people with shelter.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so, how you know, I feel like this is
Speaker 6: something that we have been talking about for a long time, right,
Speaker 6: the housing shortages, and for people who work in major
Speaker 6: cities who can't afford to live in those cities, and
Speaker 6: nobody wants to build, and so they've got to commute
Speaker 6: long commutes to get into the city.
Speaker 7: To get to their jobs.
Speaker 6: So how do we change some of this And is
Speaker 6: it if we could just change zoning, would everything be fine?
Speaker 5: Well, zoning is definitely just one piece of the puzzle.
Speaker 5: But Carol, you raised a really good example of people
Speaker 5: who have to live maybe out in the suburbs because
Speaker 5: we're not building enough housing where they want to live.
Speaker 7: Or how they want to live.
Speaker 5: So typically in this country, across far too many jurisdictions,
Speaker 5: we've seen zoning that provides what you might consider one
Speaker 5: size fits all or cookie cutter development, a house on
Speaker 5: a half acre or an acre, or even the size
Speaker 5: of a football field about two acres or more, all
Speaker 5: across this country dictated by zoning rules, and so we
Speaker 5: don't see town homes, we don't see multi family housing,
Speaker 5: we don't see more affordable options or more appealing options
Speaker 5: to people who may not want to drive, to seniors
Speaker 5: who want to age in place. In some of those
Speaker 5: suburbs and in their small towns, we're not really providing
Speaker 5: that diversity of housing, and I think that has had
Speaker 5: huge ripple effects on our economy and on our growth.
Speaker 6: When you think about zoning, is it twofold or threefold
Speaker 6: or fourfold? In other words, is it about supply? Is
Speaker 6: it about variety of housing being afforded? Is it also
Speaker 6: about thinking about this space itself? And that sometimes means
Speaker 6: open space and places to farm, do urban farming whatever, like,
Speaker 6: it's a lot of components.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's all of the But I want
Speaker 5: to touch on the last thing that you mentioned, which
Speaker 5: is essentially the characteristic of all these large zoning codes
Speaker 5: that make us push farther outward into farmland and into
Speaker 5: forest land. And essentially what we have said to developers
Speaker 5: to property owners is if you want housing, you've got
Speaker 5: to go outward to build. Now, that's a big problem
Speaker 5: for us from an environmental standpoint.
Speaker 8: It's also a.
Speaker 5: Big problem from a food security standpoint. So the point
Speaker 5: I try to make in the book is, hey, look around.
Speaker 5: Zoning is controlling a lot of the outcomes that we see,
Speaker 5: and some of the outcomes that we probably don't really want,
Speaker 5: not just as a resident in a particular town, but
Speaker 5: as Americans on the whole, trying to think about a
Speaker 5: broader approach to land development that will benefit our economy,
Speaker 5: our society, our food security, our transportation security, and so
Speaker 5: much more. But housing, I think is one of the
Speaker 5: core issues. And when it comes to zoning.
Speaker 2: What about something like historic preservation? And I'm asking you
Speaker 2: because you have a lot of experience with historic preservation.
Speaker 2: You served as the chair of the Advisory Council and
Speaker 2: historic preservation. Is that a position you still have. I
Speaker 2: think you're on office until twenty twenty five.
Speaker 5: Yes, I still serve in this federal role, but I'm
Speaker 5: talking today in my professor role and as a preservationist.
Speaker 5: And from a zoning code standpoint, you do see a
Speaker 5: lot of zoning codes that do integrate some nod.
Speaker 8: To historic structures.
Speaker 5: And I think we love most about historic neighborhoods is
Speaker 5: you know, they're lively, they're dynamic. I think, got a
Speaker 5: lot of mix of uses, and they're beautiful. And to
Speaker 5: the extent that zoning can encourage that kind of formula,
Speaker 5: they don't now too often, but to encourage that and
Speaker 5: maybe to recreate and support the historic neighborhoods we have all.
Speaker 2: The better, But is there this tension there between preserving
Speaker 2: history but also making sure that you rezone something for
Speaker 2: the future.
Speaker 5: I think. I mean, if you're thinking about you know,
Speaker 5: there's a lot of dialogue about preservation being intension with
Speaker 5: housing development in particular, but if you look actually at
Speaker 5: the research, So I'll put on my professor.
Speaker 2: Lea, I will say you have a lot of different hats.
Speaker 2: I think it's.
Speaker 5: You know, just to say that, you know, the research
Speaker 5: has shown that historic districts in cities including New York
Speaker 5: City and la are denser than non historic districts.
Speaker 7: And why is that.
Speaker 5: It's because typically in historic neighborhoods, we've always allowed historic
Speaker 5: buildings to grow and change. If you think about, you know,
Speaker 5: before zone zoning was imposed about one hundred years ago
Speaker 5: on lots of towns that already existed, and so you know,
Speaker 5: you have that layer. And one of the things that
Speaker 5: I've noticed, I have a project called the National Zoning
Speaker 5: out List that log zoning codes all over the country.
Speaker 5: One of the things I've noticed is that zoning codes
Speaker 5: have often like what gone reverse, how a neighborhood initially developed.
Speaker 5: For example, many zoning codes on what you might consider
Speaker 5: a historic main street say no housing on the upper floors. Well,
Speaker 5: that's exactly how those buildings developed, and that's what made
Speaker 5: those neighborhoods so vibrant and so attractive. Zoning fifty years
Speaker 5: ago might have said, okay, now this is one hundred
Speaker 5: percent commercial uses. You can't put housing up. But you
Speaker 5: know that was a bad idea. We should go back
Speaker 5: to that historic mixing. We should go back to a
Speaker 5: twenty four to seven, you know, concept of some of
Speaker 5: these places so that we can really, I think, revitalize
Speaker 5: those communities.
Speaker 7: This is super interesting.
Speaker 2: I wasn't joking when I said she has a lot
Speaker 2: of hats. She's an architect, she's an attorney, she's a policymaker,
Speaker 2: an author, and a professor, just to name a few things.
Speaker 6: So okay, now I feel like I've done nothing with
Speaker 6: my life.
Speaker 7: It is super impressive. Having said that, I'm listening to you,
Speaker 7: and I feel like, so what.
Speaker 6: I live in a historic neighborhood, and you know, there
Speaker 6: are rules when you do things, and it's as the
Speaker 6: years have gone by, the rules have gotten even tougher.
Speaker 6: And that has to do with adding on and all
Speaker 6: that kind of stuff. And yet the city seems to
Speaker 6: push in terms of newer development, squeezing things in almost everywhere.
Speaker 6: And it's getting to point where's a little bit of
Speaker 6: a pushback and fight to kind of preserve some of
Speaker 6: the open space or preserve some of the old you know,
Speaker 6: train embankment or something like that that is part of
Speaker 6: the neighborhood. When does you know what's the right balance
Speaker 6: and how you think about development that is needed, maybe
Speaker 6: in terms of housing, but then there's over development that
Speaker 6: just makes it not a great place to live.
Speaker 7: How do we assess that.
Speaker 5: So zoning can be a really good tool for providing
Speaker 5: and protecting for urban space, for open space, especially in
Speaker 5: urban environments, and you know, you can zone for open space,
Speaker 5: you can zone for parkland, as they point out in
Speaker 5: the book, you can zone for street trees and the
Speaker 5: kind of environmental infrastructure that actually can benefit us, make
Speaker 5: us healthier, make us calmer. But going back to your
Speaker 5: question on density in historic neighborhoods, I'm a proponent of
Speaker 5: lots of different housing options, whether it's carriage house conversions
Speaker 5: to accessory dwelling units, or you know, allowing for one, two,
Speaker 5: three family housing where it's appropriate. But I'm also a
Speaker 5: big fan of looking outside of those historic districts to
Speaker 5: say what kind of compatible development can happen that can
Speaker 5: be complementary of the existing historic districts, because you do
Speaker 5: want to keep that sense of virucy, you do want
Speaker 5: to allow historic neighborhoods to change. And I will say,
Speaker 5: you know, thinking about the approach to historic preservation, you've
Speaker 5: talked about, you know, add ons and additions, there's a
Speaker 5: whole other set of rules, historic preservation rules, design control
Speaker 5: rules that layer on top of zoning and that I've
Speaker 5: argued in other work is maybe sometimes too restrictive when
Speaker 5: we think too much about the material of a place
Speaker 5: and not about sort of the long term goals of
Speaker 5: the community and the people who live there. And I
Speaker 5: think housing is one of those places where we could
Speaker 5: stand a little bit more flexibility when it comes to
Speaker 5: those design rules. I'll also just add, you know, I
Speaker 5: don't know where you live, but places like New York City,
Speaker 5: places like Hartford, where I had shared the Planning and
Speaker 5: Zoning Commission, have really taken a look at a different
Speaker 5: kind of historic building stock. And that's industrial and manufacturing
Speaker 5: building stock and trying to figure out ways to rezone
Speaker 5: that for housing. Lots of cities have often sort of
Speaker 5: adopted a zoning code and then left it there for decades.
Speaker 5: I think that has really hurt the revitalization redevelopment of
Speaker 5: industrial neighborhoods and these big mill buildings and factories that.
Speaker 7: Aren't well positioned.
Speaker 5: We don't have the same kind of manufacturing demands anymore,
Speaker 5: but often they're in a neighborhood which had work or
Speaker 5: housing around it. So thinking about those historic buildings, repurposing
Speaker 5: those I think is also an important thing for cities
Speaker 5: to do.
Speaker 6: Definitely in our neighborhood where they've repurposed some of it
Speaker 6: for residential. Now some of them have been torn down
Speaker 6: and maybe that's they just made choices that it just
Speaker 6: didn't make any sense. It becomes a mixture, but some
Speaker 6: have been definitely repurposed.
Speaker 2: And Sarah, I live in South Brooklyn and the Gowanas
Speaker 2: area is a former industrial area that has been rezoned
Speaker 2: from a commercial and industrial into residential and one challenge
Speaker 2: that they've faced is that they're toxic chemicals that were
Speaker 2: used in industry over the last couple of centuries that
Speaker 2: are now seeping up, so that state now has to
Speaker 2: figure out a way to contain these because so many
Speaker 2: thousands of homes are being built there right now. We're
Speaker 2: gonna do some Yeah, we're going to hold that thought
Speaker 2: because we're going to come back. We're going to do
Speaker 2: some news. Professor Sarah Bronan, she's the professor of law
Speaker 2: and or been planning at Cornell University. She's an architect,
Speaker 2: she's an attorney. She's the author of a new book,
Speaker 2: Key to the City, How Zoning Shapes Our World. I
Speaker 2: want to get right back to Sarah Bronan, professor of
Speaker 2: Law and a been planning at Cornell. She's the author
Speaker 2: of the new book Key to the City, How Zoning
Speaker 2: Shapes Our World. She joins us once again from Washington,
Speaker 2: d C. I promised we'd talk about a little bit
Speaker 2: about Guwanas and then we're going to go around the country.
Speaker 2: In the last few minutes that we have, Professor Brown
Speaker 2: and you were saying something about guanas and the conversion
Speaker 2: from an industrial area to a residential area and the
Speaker 2: challenges that the area is dealing with toxic chemicals.
Speaker 5: And that's why I said at the beginning of this
Speaker 5: conversation that zoning is just one piece and so thinking
Speaker 5: about you know, when cities are trying to figure out
Speaker 5: how do we revitalize this neighborhood, zoning is a critical
Speaker 5: part because it says how it can be revitalized. But
Speaker 5: there's all of these other issues too, including financing, including
Speaker 5: environmental cleanup. You've tackled it in New York City at
Speaker 5: Guanas with a huge rezoning and you know, done some
Speaker 5: cleanup and you see a lot of development happening and
Speaker 5: on the way. I use Baltimore in the book to
Speaker 5: talk about a different kind of industrial rehabilitation effort that's
Speaker 5: happening in the Remington neighborhood there, and different cities at
Speaker 5: different scales are trying different things, but in all of them,
Speaker 5: when you're thinking about revitalizing a neighborhood, reviving its economy,
Speaker 5: making new connections, making neighborhoods more accessible, zoning is an
Speaker 5: essential part of the discussion.
Speaker 6: I want to go continue kind of with our some
Speaker 6: other places around the country. Having said that, I do
Speaker 6: want to ask you, might it be a city like
Speaker 6: Atlantic City or Detroit where revitalizing it continues to be
Speaker 6: year after year a struggle. Are there some areas that
Speaker 6: cannot be revitalized.
Speaker 5: So both of these cities present very different studies of
Speaker 5: the issues. I mean when it comes to Detroit, I
Speaker 5: think what has happened there as has happened in Hartford
Speaker 5: in Buffalo similarly, post industrial cities that have seen population
Speaker 5: loss and have seen disinvestment, is that increasingly city leaders
Speaker 5: have turned to the zoning code. In Detroit's case, lots
Speaker 5: of different uses allowed in places they weren't before or
Speaker 5: as well as urban agriculture. You see that in Hertford.
Speaker 5: Again where I work in Buffalo you saw and in
Speaker 5: Hertford you see elimination of minimum parking requirements which and
Speaker 5: pose significant costs on new housing. Those moves have really
Speaker 5: helped to encourage new investment because developers know with greater
Speaker 5: certainty exactly how much money they'll have to spend in
Speaker 5: order to get a development over the finish line, and
Speaker 5: also thinking about things like process improvements. Zoning codes can
Speaker 5: be thousands of pages long in the case of New
Speaker 5: York City, and believe it or not, Boston is at
Speaker 5: the very top of the list at I think thirty
Speaker 5: eight hundred pages of zoning code and that I think
Speaker 5: comes with it inherently. It's a complexity, and so stripping
Speaker 5: away some of that complexity, writing the rules of the
Speaker 5: game in advance is a strategy that places like Detroit
Speaker 5: can use to help to spur economic growth through the
Speaker 5: creation of certainty. And you see that across regulations, right, business,
Speaker 5: business people want certainty, and zoning is no different and land,
Speaker 5: of course a highly important commodity.
Speaker 2: Okay, can we talk cars real quick? You mentioned minimum
Speaker 2: parking requirement being removed, something I think they did with
Speaker 2: some projects in New York City.
Speaker 7: What does that mean minimum?
Speaker 2: So correct me if I'm wrong, professor, But the idea
Speaker 2: with a development, you have to guarantee a certain number
Speaker 2: of parking spaces per number of units in a building.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 7: That's right?
Speaker 5: So what that means in some cases we've seen codes
Speaker 5: that require four parking spaces for a single apartment. Often
Speaker 5: what that means is that you're building more parking than housing.
Speaker 5: So what does that tell you about the jurisdiction's approach
Speaker 5: to housing development. It's almost like they're stacking the deck
Speaker 5: against new housing. We also know that parking is it's
Speaker 5: not beautiful. It's a lot of pavement. It is not
Speaker 5: necessary in places like New York City. But I'm going
Speaker 5: to use New York City as an example. I know
Speaker 5: they're trying to change that right now with the City
Speaker 5: of Yes zoning proposal, but right now, overwhelmingly in New
Speaker 5: York City, a place where I think the majority of
Speaker 5: residents don't have cars or don't use them regularly, there
Speaker 5: are minimum parking requirements in the vast majority of land
Speaker 5: in New York City, including in Manhattan. Just posted New
Speaker 5: York City to the national zoning out lists. It's a
Speaker 5: zoning outlest dot org if anybody wants to check it out,
Speaker 5: and you can see where those minimum parking requirements exist.
Speaker 5: And it's not the way that we should be developing
Speaker 5: our cities. We should be promoting lots of different kinds
Speaker 5: of ways of moving around, because again, not everybody wants
Speaker 5: to drive, not everybody can afford a car.
Speaker 2: It's a perfect segway. Sorry I want to jump in
Speaker 2: because we only have three minutes left, but it's the
Speaker 2: perfect segway to talk about public transit and cars in
Speaker 2: the United States. And it just to me feels like
Speaker 2: this is such a car centric culture and this country
Speaker 2: was designed essentially for the Autumn Biel. And it makes
Speaker 2: me think that so much of what we see with
Speaker 2: zoning and development is inextricably bound to the idea that
Speaker 2: we are driving ourselves from one place to another place.
Speaker 2: Convince me that I'm wrong.
Speaker 8: You're right.
Speaker 5: Is that what you wanted to hear, because.
Speaker 2: No, that's not what I wanted to hear.
Speaker 5: And I think it has huge negative consequences, not only
Speaker 5: on the environment in the form of sprawl, which we've
Speaker 5: talked about, but also on our health. And I used
Speaker 5: in the book an example of a neighborhood in Hartford
Speaker 5: where you have a thoroughfare that was rezoned in the
Speaker 5: nineteen fifties when we thought, oh, suburban commuters is exactly
Speaker 5: what we need to provide for and zone for gas
Speaker 5: stations and parking lots and strip malls and fast food joints.
Speaker 5: And guess what happens. That's what that particular avenue became
Speaker 5: to the detriment in the form of asthma, in the
Speaker 5: form of obesity related illnesses of people in the immediate neighborhood.
Speaker 5: And so just in that one story, you see the
Speaker 5: power of zoning to completely reshape a community. An urban
Speaker 5: community that had been built out a century or more ago,
Speaker 5: that area with beautiful buildings on it, walkable and so on,
Speaker 5: and a lot of that got changed over. I think
Speaker 5: it's a nineteen fifties nineteen sixties mindset. But again, too
Speaker 5: many zoning codes have just been sitting there with these
Speaker 5: cumulative effects on us now that we need to really revisit.
Speaker 6: Sarah, I just got thirty seconds left hair climate change.
Speaker 6: How is that going to probably up end zoning codes
Speaker 6: in some ways just quickly.
Speaker 5: Zoning is allowing far too many things to be built
Speaker 5: in places we have no business building. We are doing
Speaker 5: research on sea level rise. With the national zoning out lists,
Speaker 5: we're going to be seeing a lot more data on
Speaker 5: this come out, and I think to the extent that
Speaker 5: we are making these little decisions at the local level,
Speaker 5: we've got to start broadening this out and saying, how
Speaker 5: are zoning codes affecting our ability as a nation to
Speaker 5: respond to climate change? And I think our answer will
Speaker 5: be unfortunately, we're not, but.
Speaker 7: We can do better.
Speaker 5: And that's the hope that I try to put forward
Speaker 5: in the book.
Speaker 7: We can always do better.
Speaker 6: I agree with you, Sarah Brennan, she's professor of Law
Speaker 6: and Urban Planning at Cornell University. Her new book, Key
Speaker 6: to the City, How Zoning Shapes Our World. Great stuff
Speaker 6: in at the book. She takes you to Ames, Iowa,
Speaker 6: she takes you to Alabama, she takes you to Vegas, Georgetown.
Speaker 6: Some specific situations and stories when it comes to zoning
Speaker 6: around the country.
Speaker 2: So really cool.
Speaker 7: Check it out. Yeah, exactly zoning.
Speaker 6: I think every time we talk about residential real estate,
Speaker 6: that comes up, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I thank you.
Speaker 2: I think fine. And that's why it's so hard at
Speaker 2: the federal level to make any change because these are
Speaker 2: local rules and regulations. Zoning at the local level.
Speaker 7: Right, you can't just make a blanket.
Speaker 1: Yeah. This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters
Speaker 1: and editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine,
Speaker 1: plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: It is Bloomberg Business Week on this Thursday afternoon. Is
Speaker 2: that cheetos?
Speaker 4: Dust?
Speaker 2: I see? Isn't a cheetah?
Speaker 7: Is it a crazy story?
Speaker 2: We don't have We had cheetos upstairs and this in
Speaker 2: the blue.
Speaker 7: I don't think it's a Bloomberg kind of snacky.
Speaker 2: We had the baked cheetos. We didn't have them yesterday though,
Speaker 2: because I was looking for them the spicy spicy bag cheetas.
Speaker 1: Now, I don't know.
Speaker 2: After seeing this journal report, Hey you mentioned in video, Yeah,
Speaker 2: shares surged after CEO Jensen Wank said demand for the
Speaker 2: Blackwell chips is quote insane. Some other news out of
Speaker 2: the chip industry semiconductor space in recent days, Carol, you
Speaker 2: talked about this yesterday. Global semiconductor makers are monitoring supplies
Speaker 2: of high purity quarts. It's a material critical to the
Speaker 2: industry after Hurricane Helen halted production at two North Carolina
Speaker 2: mines that produce most of the world's supply.
Speaker 6: Listen, we talk about this constantly, and we talk also
Speaker 6: about the chip woar, the battle for technological supremacy and
Speaker 6: the way that nations include the United States and China
Speaker 6: are trying to protect and build out their own semiconductor industries.
Speaker 7: And we've got a great guest on this, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Deetro Hanford is a CEO of NATCAST. It's a nonprofit
Speaker 2: that oversees the National Semiconductor Technology Center. This is a
Speaker 2: public private industry group. It works to promote research and
Speaker 2: development of semiconductors here in the US. Deirdre joins us
Speaker 2: from the San Francisco Bay area. Deirdre, good to have
Speaker 2: you with us. We're going to talk about the space
Speaker 2: and what you folks are doing. Before we get to that,
Speaker 2: just give us an idea of the organization, where you
Speaker 2: get your funding, who you work with, what you do.
Speaker 8: Well, first of all, thank you so much Carol and
Speaker 8: Tim for the opportunity to talk about the National Semiconductor
Speaker 8: Technology Center. And it was great to hear the two
Speaker 8: of the last three conversations you all had. We're about semiconductors.
Speaker 8: The mice thing isn't so so connected to our field. Well,
Speaker 8: what we're all about is, you know, NetCast and the
Speaker 8: National Semiconductor Technology Center is a public private constium, as
Speaker 8: you said, and our job is to convene industry, government
Speaker 8: and academia to really strengthen semiconductor research and development in
Speaker 8: our country. Because, as you heard from two of the
Speaker 8: three prior conversations, semiconductors really fuel everything from data centers
Speaker 8: to cars to the cell phones you also talked about
Speaker 8: is pretty remarkable. So we're trying to make sure that
Speaker 8: we have not only semiconductor leadership today, but that we
Speaker 8: have semiconductor R and D leadership into the future because
Speaker 8: that drives economic and national vitality. And the other thing
Speaker 8: that we're really going to be focused on is developing
Speaker 8: our semiconductor workforce in the United States.
Speaker 6: Who are your members specifically.
Speaker 8: Well, a great question. We just opened up membership this week,
Speaker 8: so it was pretty amazing because we opened up at
Speaker 8: midnight on Monday morning and someone within two hours registered
Speaker 8: to join. Talking about who's joined, but what we anticipate
Speaker 8: our membership will be as a very broad base of
Speaker 8: semiconductor stakeholders from big semiconductor firms like the ones you
Speaker 8: mentioned previously. This hour also to startups in the semiconductor
Speaker 8: space community, colleges that are helping to develop technician programs
Speaker 8: for the manufacturing fabs that are being built in the country,
Speaker 8: you know, basically the whole ecosystem. Our founding members are Gnatcasts,
Speaker 8: the organization I'm responsible for, and the Department of Defense,
Speaker 8: Department of Energy, Department of Commerce, and National Science Foundation.
Speaker 8: But what you will expect and you will see over
Speaker 8: the coming weeks and months, the entire industry will be
Speaker 8: joining us.
Speaker 2: The entire US industry or the entire global industry.
Speaker 8: Really good question. I think you know, we are charged.
Speaker 8: We are currently funded by the Department of Commerce under
Speaker 8: the Chips and Science Acts, so we're driving US economic vitality.
Speaker 8: But there's a lot of global firms with the significant
Speaker 8: US presence, so we would expect to have, you know,
Speaker 8: all those firms that have a large US presence to
Speaker 8: be part of the NSTC.
Speaker 7: Well, I am curious.
Speaker 6: You know, you mentioned the Chips Act and something that
Speaker 6: we've talked about a lot here at Bloomberg and the
Speaker 6: impact of it, and certainly the build out and the
Speaker 6: use of that money is just starting. Are you doing
Speaker 6: this in conjunction with that?
Speaker 7: And because of that.
Speaker 8: Great question, the Chips and Science Act really has multiple
Speaker 8: components to it. There is a incentive grant component where
Speaker 8: you're hearing about new fabs being built around the country
Speaker 8: like that. We've heard about TS and C is already
Speaker 8: producing chips for the Apple cell phone inside their fab
Speaker 8: in Arizona. So those are the government grants for manufacturing
Speaker 8: and really supply chain resilience. Another huge component of the
Speaker 8: Chips and Science Act is focused on research and development.
Speaker 8: And then NSTC is really the centerpiece of that R
Speaker 8: and D Chips Act component.
Speaker 2: What happens if President Trump wins the election in November
Speaker 2: and is he able to undo any of the steps
Speaker 2: that were put in place by the Biden administration to
Speaker 2: create this partnership.
Speaker 8: So, first of all, when the Chips and Science Act
Speaker 8: passed back in August of twenty twenty two, there was
Speaker 8: broad bipartisan support for this initiative. And why is that
Speaker 8: Because semiconductors drive every aspect of our vital economy, and
Speaker 8: you have that in data centers and cell phones and
Speaker 8: automobiles and so on and so on. So I'm fairly
Speaker 8: confident that regardless of who's leading on the hill in
Speaker 8: the House and the Senate, and who's sitting in the
Speaker 8: White House, that we will continue to enjoy broad based
Speaker 8: support for our initiatives.
Speaker 6: I want to understand and forgive me because there's the
Speaker 6: Semiconductor Industry Association that's the voice of the semiconductor industry.
Speaker 6: You guys obviously have government components to so help me
Speaker 6: understand kind of what your role is. You know, at
Speaker 6: a time where people are looking at the so many
Speaker 6: different layers within the government, and you know how money
Speaker 6: is being used. What specifically is the role of n STC.
Speaker 8: So, first of all, SIA semi Conductor Industry Association, they're
Speaker 8: a great organization. They're a trade organization. As you mentioned,
Speaker 8: our trade association made up of many leading semiconductor firms
Speaker 8: in the United States. A lot of their agenda is
Speaker 8: really to promote policy and so on. We're going to
Speaker 8: be driving semiconductor R and D leadership and we're going
Speaker 8: to do that in a number of ways. First of all,
Speaker 8: we're going to be you know, commissioning research. We've already
Speaker 8: commissioned or in the process of commissioning some early research
Speaker 8: grants around important topics like AI driven ship design. We're
Speaker 8: going to be doing another research initiative kicking off next
Speaker 8: month around you know, mitigate of these forever chemicals that
Speaker 8: go into semiconductors. So a research agenda and driving research
Speaker 8: for the industry with the industry will be a key component.
Speaker 4: Of our mission.
Speaker 6: So, you know, Deirdre, is this kind of akin to
Speaker 6: DARPA what it does for defense or I think about
Speaker 6: some of the R and D that led to or
Speaker 6: helped lead to the COVID vaccine right before it kind
Speaker 6: of got out into the private sector. Is that how
Speaker 6: we should think about it?
Speaker 8: And in se many connector companies do invest a tremendous
Speaker 8: amount in R and D. This is really bringing companies
Speaker 8: and industries and government and academia together to solve problems
Speaker 8: that are better solved together. And so a really great area,
Speaker 8: for instance, is things like research. You know, we have
Speaker 8: wonderful researchers in this country and they a lot of
Speaker 8: times they have to start from scratch when they're doing
Speaker 8: research work. So how can we create tools to help
Speaker 8: them innovate faster? And that's going to be an advantage
Speaker 8: for the entire US economy.
Speaker 6: What would you say is the biggest problem that you
Speaker 6: have to tackle and just got about twenty five seconds left.
Speaker 8: Well, I think we're all excited about what's happening in
Speaker 8: data centers and what's happening in AI because it's really
Speaker 8: revolutionizing the industry. I think we need to be really
Speaker 8: careful about reducing power consumption and the sustainability of this
Speaker 8: transformative innovation in the United States. Yeah, it's something we
Speaker 8: have power consumption and power sustainability very cool. That's something
Speaker 8: certainly we talked about Climate Week here in New York
Speaker 8: City and talked about with some global leaders.
Speaker 7: Deirdre, thank you so much.
Speaker 6: Deirdre Hanford, che chief executive Officer at NATCAST, joining us
Speaker 6: from Santa Clara County, California.
Speaker 7: You are listening and watching Bloomberg Business Week.