Subsidy Sheet: Tesla lays off 300 Buffalo “solar” workers despite nearly $1B in public subsidies

NY corporate giveaway news from this week:

• Tesla is laying off nearly 300 workers at its Buffalo Riverbend “solar panel factory” (WIVB). The plant cost New York taxpayers nearly a billion dollars in subsidies and was the center of the Buffalo Billion bid-rigging scandal. Despite producing 10 million megawatt hours of hype, the plant never mass-produced solar panels as originally planned nor came close to hitting its original job targets.
• Albany does what it loves most – give away NYC property taxes to big donors. The Governor and Legislature have finally created a successor to the 421-a tax incentive program. Like the old program, the new one will hand out billions of dollars in tax revenue in exchange for developers building “affordable” housing. Here are some takes:
  • The City: Hochul Housing Deal Prompts Pushback and a Big Question: Will It Be Enough?
  • City & State: Reactions to Hochul’s preliminary budget deal
  • Brick Underground: Both landlords and tenant advocates criticize tentative housing deal in New York state budget
• Micron news:
  • The company received a $6.1 billion federal grant for its fabs in upstate NY and Idaho (Times Union).
  • “Why doesn’t Micron put solar panels on its roofs to offset its enormous energy use?” asks a Syracuse Post-Standard writer.
• Trump again claims Opportunity Zone capital gains tax breaks are proof he’s done more for Black people than any president since Abraham Lincoln (Mediaite). 
• “Governor Hochul and the Coca-Cola company celebrate” $21 million in state subsidies to fairlife. The Coke subsidiary is planning to build a new $650 million milk-processing plant in Webster, Monroe County, near Rochester. The new plant will employ 250 people at a potential cost to New York taxpayers of $84,000 per job.

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