Subsidy stories you may have missed

October 25, 2024

The groundbreaking for Micron’s plant in Clay, NY – just north of Syracuse’s city line – was scheduled for June 2024, but has been pushed back to November 2025 (Syracuse Post-Standard). New chip fabs are in most cases exempted by federal law from environmental review. However, the proposed fab has triggered a full review because it needs a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to fill in 244 acres of wetlands and more than a mile of streams. Micron also plans to cut down nearly 500 acres of forest – an area bigger than the New York State Fairgrounds – to build all four fabs.

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    Local sources speculate that hydrogen producer Plug Power could be pulling out of STAMP, the industrial park in rural Genesee County (The Batavian). Plug Power didn’t include STAMP in their federal loan application, and is alleged to have said that the project is on hold. If the project goes forward, the company will receive tax breaks totaling $4 million per job created. In other STAMP news, the Tonawanda Seneca Nation opposes a proposed 16-mile water pipeline from Niagara County to Genesee County, citing environmental concerns (Buffalo News).

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      Other NY corporate giveaway news from this week:

      • Some developers don’t care for new proposed rules on tax breaks for office-to-housing conversion and multifamily housing in NYC (Bloomberg Law).
      • A story on Regeneron’s NY presence cited Reinvent Albany’s analysis showing that the pharmaceutical company has received $500 million in tax breaks from Empire State Development and various IDAs since 2006 (Albany Business Review).
      • National subsidy watchdog Good Jobs First answers all your questions about film/TV tax credits. Our favorite: “Do media production subsidies pay off for states?” Answer: “Absolutely not.”
      • Industry experts have raised questions about the wisdom of the Biden administration betting big on Intel, whose chips are not as advanced as their competitors’ (New York Times).

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