Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon is downplaying President Trump’s remarks to Congress Tuesday night as "rhetoric in the arena" about the $52 billion CHIPS and Science Act. Micron’s decision to build semiconductor fabrication plants in Clay largely hinged on incentives provided under CHIPS.
Here’s how Trump described the Chips Act.
“We’re not giving them any money. The CHIPs act is a horrible, horrible thing. We give hundreds of billions of dollars…it doesn’t mean a thing…” Trump said.
But he didn’t’ stop there.
“You should get rid of the CHIP Act. Whatever is left over, Mr. Speaker, you should use it to reduce debt…”
County Executive McMahon said he isn't concerned, even if the president's words didn't inspire confidence.
“Talking about the chips act the way that the President talked about it is not helpful," McMahon said. "I don't think that the grants that have already been secured and signed and appropriated are in jeopardy.”
That includes the $6.1 billion dollars promised to Micron. McMahon says he’s been in regular contact with key trump cabinet members as they move toward groundbreaking in November.
“If this administration did not want to support this project, this administration would not be working with us every day to move the project forward," McMahon said. "Pencils would have been down on the environmental review.”
He says that’s not the case, and expects the review to be complete this month. McMahon says he also can’t imagine the CHIPS Act would be repealed by Congress.
“The idea that Republicans and Democrats would vote against projects in their district when they voted for the plan, literally in a bipartisan manner, pretty overwhelmingly, is not practical," McMahon said. "You aren't getting 60 votes out of the U.S. Senate to vote against the CHIPS and Science Act."
Micron’s four plants in Clay alone would directly employ up to nine thousand people and generate tens of thousands of spinoff jobs.
CHIEF CHIPS ARCHITECT BAFFLED
The CHIPS Act was made through a bipartisan partnership between Indiana Republican Senator Todd Young and Democratic New York Senator Chuck Schumer.
When asked on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Show whether Democrats and Republicans could find a way to come together under the White House terms, Schumer chose to focus on President Trump’s contradictory criticism of the CHIPs Act.
“He said he wants to cut it. I don't even know why he wants to cut it," Schumer said. "They say they want to bring chip manufacturing back to the United States, they say they want good paying jobs in lots of areas that don’t have them. We’re so proud of the big chip fabs that are going up across upstate New York, and Syracuse, and Albany and in between Buffalo and Rochester. Why would he do that?”
Other New York projects in jeopardy if CHPs is repealed, include the Global Foundries' plan for a $2 billion factory in Saratoga County and others across the I-90 hub connecting Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo.
