ON Semiconductor Lifts Lobbying Spend to $190,000 as CHIPS Funding Nears End

ON Semiconductor spent $190,000 on lobbying in the third quarter, up $80,000 — or 72.7% — from the same period in 2025. The increase arrives as a Congressional Research Service report identifies fiscal 2026 as the final year the Commerce Department is scheduled to receive CHIPS and Science Act funding for domestic semiconductor-production incentives.

The figure combines two filings. Mayer Brown LLP reported $110,000 in lobbying income for the quarter; Icebreaker Strategies LLC filed separately, showing $80,000. A year earlier, only Mayer Brown reported, at $110,000. The growth, in other words, came entirely from adding a second firm.

The filing, signed Oct. 20, lists monitoring and outreach on the CHIPS Act (P.L. 117-167) alongside several other matters:

• technologies posing national and economic security risks;
• artificial intelligence data center energy consumption;
• the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (P.L. 119-21);
• pending corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT) regulations.

Who is doing the lobbying?

Mayer Brown lists three lobbyists, all with prior government experience. Jonathan Becker, a partner, previously served on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Warren Payne III, a consultant and senior adviser, worked on the House Ways and Means Committee during the 110th through 113th Congresses. Dan Harder, a senior government affairs adviser, served on Ways and Means during the 113th Congress and in the office of former Rep. Mike Bishop, a Michigan Republican.

Icebreaker Strategies fields six lobbyists: Will Todd IV, Matt Bower, Lily Woodall, Tyler Irwin, Mike Clementi and Brian Potts. Neither firm's disclosed team changed during the most recent quarter. Mayer Brown's quarterly income from ON Semiconductor has held flat in recent complete quarters, while Icebreaker's rose in the first quarter and then stabilized.

Why does the CHIPS clock matter?

The CRS report frames the stakes plainly: fiscal 2026 is the last scheduled year of CHIPS Act funding for production incentives under the law's existing schedule. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, called the Commerce Department's $2 billion in quantum awards from CHIPS funds illegal in May, questioning the use of taxpayer money.

The industry's argument dates to February 2021, when SEMI and 16 other groups, including the Semiconductor Industry Association, urged the Biden administration to fund CHIPS for America programs. They cited a decline in the U.S. share of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity from roughly 24% to 12% over 20 years. Critics were unmoved: in July 2022, Americans for Prosperity urged Congress to reject the act as corporate welfare, noting companies had already announced nearly $80 billion in U.S. investment plans since the start of 2021.

Export-control legislation also features in the security file. Rep. Josh Riley, a New York Democrat, backed the bipartisan MATCH Act in April, which would tighten U.S. controls on semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Sen. Ted Budd, a North Carolina Republican, promoted his Semiconductor Superiority Act in June to help U.S. manufacturers compete with China.

What about the tax side?

H.R. 1 became Public Law 119-21 on July 4, 2025, and ON Semiconductor's filing identifies it among the tax issues being monitored. The SIA supported the law's increase in the advanced manufacturing investment credit from 25% to 35%.

The CAMT is the other live question. A CRS analysis cited a Joint Committee on Taxation estimate that the 15% corporate alternative minimum tax would raise roughly $222 billion over 10 years, and discussed research suggesting about 80 corporations would have been subject to it against earlier financial data. S. 796, the Book Minimum Tax Repeal Act, would repeal the tax; introduced Feb. 27, 2025, it sits in the Senate Finance Committee with no subsequent action identified in the reviewed record.

With CHIPS incentive funding scheduled to lapse after fiscal 2026, a chipmaker spending more on Washington advocacy is not a surprise. It is a rational response to a subsidy pipeline with a closing date.