Semiconductor chips are seen on a printed circuit board in this illustration picture taken February 17, 2023. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration

By Alexandra Alper

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A bipartisan duo of U.S. senators unveiled a bill on Wednesday that directs the Commerce Department to create a level playing field when issuing export licenses and not make decisions that benefit one U.S. company over another.

The legislation, drafted by Democrat Elizabeth Warren and Republican Rick Scott, comes after the Commerce Department drew fire for granting licenses to Intel and Qualcomm to sell chips to Huawei without approving similar sales to the heavily sanctioned Chinese telecom giant by rivals MediaTek and AMD.

The Biden administration eventually revoked Intel and Qualcomm's licenses last year, but concerns have festered about the Commerce Department's ability to create an unfair playing field among U.S. competitors vying to maintain access to overseas customers whose purchases of American technology require licenses for national security reasons.

"Monopoly licenses have the potential to create serious distortion in the market, exacerbate economic and security vulnerabilities, and undermine fairness in the export licensing regime," according to the text of the bill, which has not been previously reported.

If approved, the legislation would require the agency, which oversees U.S. export control policy, to conduct a "competitive market review" when considering a license request to determine if the exporter would become the only firm authorized to ship that item to a potential buyer. Such a license would only then receive approval if no similar license has been sought by rivals for the same customer.

The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Alexandra AlperEditing by Rod Nickel)