Congress creates financial incentives for workers to report illegal chip exports
H.R. 6322 — Stop Stealing our Chips Act · Filed by Thomas Kean (R-NJ) · 12 cosponsors · Introduced Nov 28, 2025 · Reported out
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill creates a whistleblower incentive and protection program for export control violations, particularly the illegal diversion of advanced AI chips to U.S. adversaries. It establishes a secure online portal for anonymous reporting, requires the Commerce Department to investigate credible reports within 60 days, and pays whistleblowers 10–30% of fines collected when their information leads to penalties exceeding $1 million. The bill also protects whistleblowers from employer retaliation and creates a dedicated fund to pay awards and support the program.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a dual-track program: financial incentives for reporting export violations and legal protections against employer retaliation. Both serve the stated national security purpose of detecting and deterring illegal chip exports.
What the text implies
- The bill's confidentiality provisions allow Commerce to share whistleblower identity with foreign law enforcement without explicit whistleblower consent, creating potential retaliation risk in countries with weak rule of law or adversarial relationships with the U.S.
- Whistleblowers employed by compliance/audit firms or as officers/directors are barred from awards unless they first report internally and wait 120 days—potentially delaying urgent national security reports and creating leverage for employers to suppress disclosure.
- The $100 million minimum fund balance (adjusted for inflation) may accumulate unused capital if export violations decline, creating a permanent government fund not subject to annual appropriations review.
- Award eligibility extends to violations that occurred before the bill's enactment, potentially creating retroactive incentives and reopening settled cases if new information surfaces.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill strengthens national security enforcement by incentivizing insider reporting of illegal chip exports while providing robust legal protections against retaliation for workers who speak up. Citizens benefit from both stronger enforcement of export controls and explicit anti-retaliation rights that extend beyond the whistleblower program itself.
Who stands to gain
- Individual whistleblowers (10–30% of fines collected)
- Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security (program administration funding)
Named in the bill
Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security, Office of Foreign Assets Control, Export Administration Regulations, Export Compliance Accountability Fund, Crime Victims Fund, U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund
Where it stands
12 cosponsors: 6 Democrats, 6 Republicans.
- Nov 28, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Nov 28, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Foreign Affairs · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs”
- Apr 22, 2026 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
- Apr 22, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 43 - 1”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
5 lobbying clients named this bill on 6 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $2,040,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 40 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 78% of bills with at least one filing.
Thomas Kean, the sponsor, reported $1,220,477 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle. $2,000 of that came from 1 PAC tied to these lobbying clients.
- Intel Corporation — $700,000 on 1 filing
- Lenovo (united States) Inc. — $570,000 on 1 filing
- Fdd Action — $530,000 on 2 filings
- Entegris — $170,000 on 1 filing
- Demand Progress Action, Inc — $70,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (16,019 characters) on Jul 10, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Congress creates financial incentives for workers to report illegal chip exports” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr6322 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.