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WASHINGTON--The “America COMPETES Act” is being championed by Democrats, particularly Pres. Joe Biden, as way to keep China in check and help create jobs for Americans, while easing supply chain issues. Some Republicans, like Rep. Jim Banks, of Indiana, believe the bill has very little to do with China.

“They’ll help bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, and they’re squarely focused on easing the sort of supply chain bottlenecks like semiconductors that have led to higher prices for the middle class,” promised the president, in a prepared statement from the White House.

Biden called the bill “comprehensive competitiveness legislation [that] will power our economy to create good-paying jobs for all Americans, no matter where you live or whether you have a college degree, and will help tackle the climate crisis.”

Banks, speaking to Fox News this week, said he believes those statements are a bait and switch.

“This so-called COMPETES bill, which I believe should be called the Concedes bill, mentions coral reefs. If you do a search of the 2,900 pages, you’ll find coral reefs mentioned more than you’ll find the word China,” he said.

Banks said he believes the bill will give billions of dollars to the U.N. Climate Fund and creates a chief diversity officer at the National Science Foundation, which Banks said will help to advance Critical Race Theory.

“It doesn’t do anything to compete with China. It doesn’t do anything to sanction them for their bad behavior and hold them accountable.”

One of the bills main pushes in incentivizing the construction of computer chips and semi conductors within the borders of the United States, which has the support of union and industry leaders.

But, for Banks, the bill is weighed down with side projects and funding that have little to do with maintaining American economic superiority.

“It gives hundreds of billions of dollars to woke universities to do research when we know that those same universities are being raided on a daily basis by the Chinese Communist Party, who steals their research and intellectual property that we pay for with our taxpayer dollars,” said Banks.

He said he and his Republican colleagues in the House are unified in opposing the bill.