Subsidy Sheet: Sloppy journalism on Micron + NEW “Perverse Incentive” report

Micron announced it was getting $6.1 billion in federal (mainly CHIPS) subsidies for fabs in Idaho AND New York. Unfortunately, many news reports continue to wrongly claim that Micron’s plant in Clay, NY will cost $100 billion.

Micron is not making a $100 billion investment. Micron itself is not even saying this. The company has repeatedly stated it plans to invest “up to” $100 billion (or “up to” $125 billion, showing the extent to which these numbers might just be made up). And if that $100 billion ever arrives – which we see as unlikely – it won’t be anytime soon, because Micron has also said that $100 billion will be spent “over the next 20-plus years.”

Far closer to reality are Micron’s plans to open the first phase of its Clay chip fab at a cost of $20 billion, including $3 billion in federal CHIPS aid. Micron’s own communications have said this consistently. There is no “$100 billion investment” in the Clay chip fab no matter how many times Schumer and Hochul say there is. Journalists should stop and fact-check this misleading claim.

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Our new report with Good Jobs First, “Perverse Incentive,” found that deal fees generate 80% of the operating budgets of New York’s 107 Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs), and for a third of IDAs, transaction fees account for 100% of their operating income.

In the report, we make three recommendations:

• Eliminate the perverse incentive to give away tax revenue by funding IDAs within local government budgets.  
• Forbid IDAs from abating property taxes that would otherwise go to schools.
• Confirm the state constitutional prohibition on IDAs subsidizing housing.

Read the report here.

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Genesee County’s STAMP industrial park boondoggle – which has no economic reason for existing – has gotten at least $100 million in state and local subsidies. This week, federal regulators informed STAMP that they wouldrevoke its wastewater permit (Investigative Post). This is a big deal because the 1,300-acre Science, Technology and Advanced Manufacturing Park is in a rural area with little water supply and few treatment plants, plus its wastewater pipe traverses the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge. STAMP and its wastewater pipe are being sued in federal court by the Tonawanda Seneca Nation and neighboring Orleans County.

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Our statement on the FY 2025 budget covers the state’s new corporate welfare, and failure to rein in old giveaways:

• $500 million NY CREATES Albany Nanotech UV Lithography Center.
• $400 million for NY Works slush fund.
• No end to the Opportunity Zone tax break, a Trump handout to the wealthy that will cost the state and NYC up to $420 million annually from 2029.
• No passage of the Stop Climate Polluter Handouts Act, which would end $265 million in annual fossil fuel subsidies.
• No end to tax breaks for sales of private jets and yachts.

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More stories on housing in the NY budget, and the new 485-x tax break – in which the state is deciding what happens to NYC tax revenue:

• City & State: All the details of Albany’s final housing deal
• NY Focus: Albany’s New Housing Plan Would Build Only a Fraction of the Housing New York Leaders Say Is Needed
• Hell Gate: The Winners and Losers of New York State’s Budget Deal

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Other NY corporate giveaway news from this week:

• Environmental activists are concerned about “forever chemicals” that might be released by the new Micron plant (Syracuse Post-Standard), which will receive up to $5.5 billion in NYS subsidies.
• At Boondoggle, Pat Garofalo writes about why tax breaks can’t save local journalism.

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