Yeah the framing there is kinda silly, but it does seem like the whole fab reshoring thing has been plagued with problems. The more interesting parts of the article were that the time to build fabs is increasing, especially in recent times

Things look even worse when you look at specific decades. In the 90s and 2000s, the U.S. was pretty fast and saw average construction times of about 675 days. In the 10s, that number dramatically increased to 918 days. Meanwhile, China and Taiwan were going at a much faster pace that decade, with an average completion time of 675 and 642 days, respectively.

and the number of fabs overall is at all time low

Naturally, the amount of fabs the U.S. is making at all has also declined. In the 90s, 55 fabs were constructed in the U.S., dropping to 43 in the 2000s and then to 22 in the 10s. At the same time, China is massively accelerating its fab construction, from 14 in the 90s to 75 in the 2000s to 95 in the 10s.

It's also not just a month difference for the delays

The findings aren't surprising, as many high-profile fabs have missed their original targets for production. TSMC's Fab 21 in Arizona recently added a one-year delay, Intel's Ohio fabs are apparently slipping from 2025 to late 2026, and Samsung delayed a Texas-based foundry to 2025 due to not receiving its CHIPS Act funds.

And there are a couple of related data points from TSMC and Samsung regarding fab construction

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/us-government-doles-out-paltry-dollar35-million-of-the-dollar52-billion-chips-act-warns-of-possible-delays-in-intel-and-tsmc-fab-buildouts

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/us-govts-sluggish-chips-act-payouts-slam-the-breaks-on-samsungs-fab-company-delays-mass-production-at-texas-fab-to-await-further-chips-funding-report

So, while I agree that EPA regulation isn't the core problem here, I think it's pretty clear that US is having trouble with the whole reshoring idea.