Federal Government Agrees To $9.2B Loan For Ford Projects In Tennessee And Kentucky
Image Credit: Gov Bill Lee / Facebook
The Center Square [By Jon Styf] –
The U.S. Department of Energy has conditionally agreed to loan Ford Motor Co. up to $9.2 billion for the Blue Oval projects in Kentucky and Tennessee.
Ford is partnering with SK Innovation to build two plants costing $5.8 billion under construction in Glendale, Kentucky, along with an electric vehicle plant in Stanton, Tennessee.
The $5.6 billion Tennessee plant, being built on a state-owned megasite in West Tennessee outside Memphis, received an $884 million incentive package from Tennessee already with costs expected to exceed $1 billion for the state.
The Kentucky plant will be on a 1,500-acre state-owned megasite in Glendale. More than 5,000 are expected to work at the plants, which are expected to produce enough battery power to fuel 2 million Ford and Lincoln electric vehicles.
The Kentucky General Assembly approved $25 million for a new Elizabethtown Community and Technical College to train workers on the megasite.
The Ford loan remains conditional on terms that have not been made public.
“While this conditional commitment demonstrates DOE’s intent to finance the project, several steps remain for the project to reach critical milestones, and certain conditions must be satisfied before DOE issues a final loan,” a department statement said.
The loan was identified as furthering the Biden Administration’s Investing in America agenda along with the Justice40 Initiative, a goal of having 40% of the benefits of federal investments going to disadvantaged communities.
Gary Humble of Tennessee Stands, however, believes it is continued corporate welfare after Tennessee used a special session to create a large incentive for the company already.
“Which introduces the concern we should always have regarding this continued practice of corporate welfare and government interference in what should be free market affairs,” Humble wrote. “The public is being artificially pushed into a product that so far it does not want and has proven to carry a price tag exceeding the budget of what most Americans can afford. Yet, governments continue to subsidize the push to EVs and they are using our own money against us.”
Humble called it the most substantial federal investment in the automotive industry ever, larger than the $8 billion awarded through the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program.
About the Author: Jon Styf, The Center Square Staff Reporter – Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies. Follow Jon on Twitter @JonStyf.
Belly up to the trough boys $
This has really bugged me for sometime.
Any public funds being given to any type of manufacturing for BATTERY POWERED VEHICLES is an absolutely absurdly stupid waste fraud and abuse of monies.
It’s a huge sham. There is not a reliable power supply available for years. China controls most of the minerals needed, and cheap forced labor. Meanwhile back in WashDC, the federals have failed superbly in following the perfectly reasonable 911 commission in hardening, updating and securing our current decaying power grid. By now Tennessee should be breaking ground on at least one of three regional nuclear plants. Massive plants are no longer needed to provide power for our southeast sectors. Tennessee still has the land an water sources available for the newer small footprint plants.
The most positive thing that can and should be done is break-up the wasteful and over priced TVA. Lee occasionally Blah blah blahs regarding nuclear power and the Tennessee legislature continues to sit on their thumbs with their eyes closed.
Well folks keep your fingers crossed bc the public sector is whistling Dixie wth their fingers in their ears.
Yeah Yeah marxist are trashing the country, attacking parents and deliberately laying waste to our economy wth help from Mitch McConnell and his ilk.
Sure do wish the senate would finally grow a pair and fire that selfish back stabbing pos.