‘We all are on the same page.’ Beshear echoes legislators’ concerns on aluminum mill.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear joined several state lawmakers Thursday in voicing displeasure that Kentucky’s $15 million investment in 2017 to build a massive aluminum mill near Ashland has not yet produced any return for the state.
“I understand every lawmaker who is concerned. I understand exactly where they are coming from and I’m happy to talk to any and all of them. I believe we all are on the same page,” said Beshear.
State Senate budget chairman Chris McDaniel, R-Taylor Mill, recently said he will file a bill that demands Unity Aluminum, previously Braidy Industries, repay the state for its incentives. He said two administrations now and several General Assemblies have been “played for fools.”
Besides being critical of the mill project, Beshear also showed little enthusiasm to a letter from Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, about a possible special legislative session to deal with medical facility staffing shortages across the state during the coronavirus pandemic and spoke against big hikes in federal excise taxes on tobacco products proposed in a major spending bill in the U.S. Congress.
Beshear’s comments came during his weekly “Team Kentucky” news conference from the Capitol
Concern about aluminum mill
Braidy Industries promised to build a $1.7 billion aluminum mill in northeastern Kentucky after the legislature approved an unprecedented $15 million direct investment in the company in 2017. It promised to create 550 well-paying jobs in a region devastated by the decline of the coal industry.
But no construction or production has yet started, despite an original projection for the mill to be complete in 2020 and to be producing sheet aluminum for the automotive industry.
The company also has not met its goal to raise $1 billion for construction and equipping the mill.
Members of the state legislature’s Interim Joint Committee on Appropriations and Revenue grilled company officials Sept. 23 and expressed their discontent.
Beshear, asked about the mill project, said he was concerned when he was attorney general in 2017 about it. Republican Matt Bevin was governor at the time.
“It was the first time we ever wrote a company a straight-out check and then after the last administration wrote the straight-out check they separately entered another agreement where they let go all of the security interests that we had, how we could try to get that back and that wasn’t taken before the legislature,” he said.
He said Braidy, a start-up operation, may have made it impossible for the state to even get back the land if there is no project.
“There needs to be a deep-dive” into how the project came about, said Beshear, adding that he would support the project “if we think there is any opportunity” it still might succeed.
Letter from Senate President Stivers
During Beshear’s news conference Friday, Senate President Stivers made public a two-page letter he sent to the Democratic governor, saying legislators were ready to work with him on critical staffing shortages at hospitals and nursing homes.
If this is done, lawmakers would have to be called into a special session since the Kentucky Supreme Court said this year that legislative approval is needed since the governor cannot act on his own during emergencies.
Beshear has said he did not think federal money was available at this time to boost pay for health-care workers but Stivers pointed in his letter to about $1.5 billion in the state’s emergency reserve fund.
“I think I was pretty clear that if we are going to call a special session, they need to come meet with me,” Beshear said. “And I got a letter.” Only the governor can call a special session and set its agenda.
Beshear said he has talked with different hospital organizations and has not been convinced this will solve the problem, possibly even escalating “the arms race with different private nursing and other services.”
Beshear also noted that there has been “no serious discussion with the House.” He said his administration already has provided more than $1 billion in additional payments and has provided help for them from the Kentucky National Guard.
“There is policy-making and there is politics in Frankfort,” said Beshear. “I have shown I can sit down and work with anyone and am willing to but they have to be willing, too.”
Taxes on tobacco products
Beshear said he hopes everyone some day will stop smoking but that a current bill in Washington harmfully impacts Kentucky tobacco farmers. He said the proposed tax on tobacco products in the bill is unfair.
The $3.5 trillion spending bill is aimed, among other things, at funding universal prekindergarten, free community college and climate change efforts.
The bill would doubling the federal excise tax rate on a pack of cigarettes from $1.01 to $2.02 and increase the tax on chewing tobacco from 50 cents per pound to $10.70.
