Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania trails in the ‘War of the states’ as EV, chip makers are lavished with subsidies | WITF
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Marc Levy/The Related Press
States are doling out more money than ever to lure multibillion-dollar microchip, electrical automobile and battery factories, inspiring ever-more competitors as they dig deeper into their pockets to draw massive employers and capitalize on a wave of giant new initiatives.
Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas have made billion-dollar pledges for a microchip or EV plant, with extra state-subsidized plant bulletins by worthwhile automakers and semiconductor giants certainly to come back.
States have lengthy competed for giant employers. However now they’re floating extra billion-dollar presents and providing record-high subsidies, lavishing corporations with grants and low-interest loans, municipal highway enhancements, and breaks on taxes, actual property, energy and water.
“We’re within the second battle of the states,” stated John Boyd, a principal on the Florida-based Boyd Firm, which advises on website picks. “That’s how aggressive financial growth is between the states in 2023.”
The initiatives come at a transformative time for the industries, with automakers investing closely in electrification and chipmakers increasing manufacturing within the U.S. following pandemic-related provide chain disruptions that raised financial and nationwide safety issues.
One of many driving forces behind them are federal subsidies signed into regulation final summer time that should encourage corporations to provide electrical automobiles, EV batteries, and laptop chips domestically. One other is that states are flush with money due to inflation-juiced tax collections and federal pandemic aid subsidies.
The variety of massive initiatives and the dimensions of state subsidy packages are extraordinary, stated Nathan Jensen, a College of Texas professor who researches authorities financial growth methods.
“It’s sort of a Wild West second,” Jensen stated. “It’s wild cash and each state appears to be in on it.”
Good Jobs First, a nonprofit that tracks and is important of company subsidies, stated 2022 set a document for the variety of billion-dollar-plus incentive offers. At the least eight have been finalized, although that determine could be greater since such offers might be cloaked in secrecy and take time to come back to gentle.
Eighteen of final 12 months’s 23 recognized “megadeals,” during which state and native incentive packages to non-public corporations exceeded $50 million in worth, have been for semiconductor and EV vegetation, based on the group’s knowledge.
Greater than $20 billion in public cash was dedicated to subsidizing these recognized megadeals, based on Good Jobs First knowledge. That whole eclipsed the earlier document of $17.7 billion that was dedicated to subsidizing such offers in 2013.
Most of the corporations drawing the largest subsidy presents — comparable to Intel, Hyundai, Panasonic, Micron, Toyota, Ford and Common Motors — are worthwhile and function across the globe. Some lesser-known names within the nascent EV discipline are getting massive presents too, comparable to Rivian, Volkswagen-backed Scout Motors and Vietnamese automaker VinFast.
The subsidy presents are typically embraced by politicians from each main events and the enterprise elite, who level to guarantees of a whole lot or 1000’s of jobs, large investments in development and tools, and what they contend are immeasurable trickle-down advantages.
Nonetheless, teachers who examine such subsidies discover them to be a waste of cash and barely decisive in an organization’s selection of location.
In a 2021 paper arguing that subsidies are pushed by politicians for their very own profit, researchers from The Citadel, the School of Charleston and the College of Louisville-Lafayette wrote that research conclude “they do little, if something, to advertise significant enhancements in financial outcomes.”
The mounting value of competing for the initiatives hasn’t dissuaded states from making an attempt. Quite the opposite, they’re clambering to outdo one another.
Pennsylvania
Pa. to ban cell phone use while driving and require police to collect traffic stop data
Crashes where a distracted driver was a contributing factor are down in Pennsylvania in the past decade, as crashes overall have declined, according to state data.
In some years, it was the second-leading cause of accidents. In 2022, it was the third-leading cause. That was behind speed and improper turning, but ahead of drinking alcohol, careless passing and tailgating.
Twenty-eight states already ban cell phone use while driving, according information from the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Meanwhile, at least 23 states have laws on collecting data on traffic stops, the group said.
Rep. Napoleon Nelson, D-Montgomery, the chair of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus, said caucus members were concerned that police could abuse a broad new power to pull over motorists and target racial minorities.
Collecting traffic stop data is important for accountability, Nelson said.
“I think this will be a significant win for transparency and help to continue building trust between community members and those who are sworn to serve and protect,” Nelson said in an interview.
Rep. Donna Bullock, D-Philadelphia, who worked for several years to get the provision into law, called it a “big step for Pennsylvania.” The Pennsylvania State Police recently began voluntarily collecting and reporting traffic stop data and some municipal police departments do as well, Bullock said.
But the methods of individual departments aren’t uniform, like they will be under the new law, Bullock said.
Data released last year by the state police and analyzed by the National Policing Institute showed no disparities between racial and ethnic groups for warnings, citations or arrests. But troopers were more than twice more likely to search Black and Hispanic drivers than white drivers, the report showed.
Under the forthcoming law, data that police must report includes the reason for the stop, details from a search of the vehicle and the race, ethnicity, age and gender of the driver who was stopped. Police forces that serve municipalities under 5,000 people are exempt from the requirement.
The data collection requirement takes effect in a year and a half. After the cell phone ban takes effect, drivers get a grace period of another year in which they only receive a written warning for violating it.
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania mom talks to trailblazer Marjorie Margolies, who inspired her adoption journey, ahead of Mother’s Day
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Pa. (CBS) — Jennifer Cornley, a special education teacher in Montgomery County, says she always wanted to be a mother.
In January 2021, she began researching adoption and decided she wanted an international adoption.
In October, there was a match.
“I got to review her file and see her photos, and it was an instant ‘yes’ in my heart,” Cornley told CBS News Philadelphia.
Cornley and her mother flew to Vietnam to meet Cara, who had spent her first three years in an orphanage with hundreds of other children.
Cornley describes the moment she first saw Cara.
“She came over and stood with me and then we went and sat on a little bench and played,” she said. “It was awesome.”
Getting to this point wasn’t easy, Cornley said. There were binders full of paperwork, home visits and interviews.
Then she saw a story on CBS News Philadelphia about Marjorie Margolies, who, at age 25 in 1970, was a CBS News correspondent covering a story on “hard-to-place children.”
The story ultimately led Margolies to adopt a little girl from Korea.
“Just hearing that, you know, she did it, she did it as a single person and that her children are home and thriving was just another reminder that this is the journey that you’re on,” Cornley said. “This is the journey that you want and you have always wanted.”
Just days ahead of Cornley’s first Mother’s Day, she had the opportunity to meet Margolies, who offered some motherly advice.
“Listen,” says Margolies, “there will be incredible challenges, but [being a mother], it’s such a wonderful experience, the highs and the lows, just go with it.”
Cara is now focused on learning English. Cornley has some positive words of advice for anyone hoping to become a mother.
“It’s so worth it,” she said. “Every second of her is absolutely worth every second of crying that happened before she came home, you know, every second of waiting and worrying. She is the best.”
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania to make animal sedative xylazine a controlled substance
HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (WPVI) — Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is set to sign a bill that makes it illegal to misuse the animal tranquilizer xylazine.
Officials say the drug is being mixed into fentanyl and other illicit opioids, contributing to a growing number of overdose deaths.
Xylazine is a sedative used by veterinarians and would still be available for its intended use under the new bill.
Pennsylvania taking steps to control access to xylazine, a drug also known as tranq
Under the bill, xylazine would be listed as a Schedule III drug, which is a controlled substance subject to various rules.
Both the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and the Senate approved the bill in the past week.
Emerging drug ‘Tranq’ leading to amputations among users
Officials say drug suppliers are lacing the fentanyl and heroin supply with the animal tranquilizer because it is cheap and easy to get.
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