Fueling the Economic Recovery Through Manufacturing
Our latest Think About Energy session served as a recap of an Oct. 14 presentation by several PA House members and leaders in the business community who unveiled proposed legislation they call the Commonwealth’s COVID Comeback. For the sake of our regular TAE viewers who might not have been able to attend or tune in to the livestream, we asked the key speakers to provide an overview of their plans to incentivize manufacturing with no new taxes or fees in the wake of the pandemic.
If COVID has taught us anything, it is that we need to be tripling down on our efforts. Kinks in the supply chain were certainly an issue, and panelists agreed that we need to do more to promote our position as the Keystone State. The pandemic has demonstrated that we need to be better prepared for the future, and the way to do that is a bipartisan approach to identifying and supporting new opportunities and rebooting initiatives that were working in our favor prior to the shutdowns.
“A lot of these ideas are not new. The COVID crisis highlighted a lot of these issues,” said Rep. Josh Kail (Beaver/Washington). “We have a lot to market, and Pennsylvania is very well positioned to bring that back. We have the brown fields, the resources and the people. Our major deficiencies are in Harrisburg, and we need to address that.”
“Pennsylvania is not known as a great place to start business,” noted Jeff Nobers, executive director of the Builders Guild of Western Pennsylvania and founder of Pittsburgh Works Together. “We have to show the business world that we want them to be here.” More effective marketing is just part of the approach, Nobers explained. We also need to be challenging the rhetoric of environmental and anti-business groups.
Education is another key component, said Rep. Mike Reese (Somerset/Westmoreland), from pushing STEM studies in schools and more specialized training in trades relevant to manufacturing to getting elected officials on board and engaged in the dialogue. “We have some of the brightest minds in the world right here in Pennsylvania,” Reese asserted. “My resolution will combine the education committee and the progress committee.” The nonpartisan group Reese envisions would be tasked with bringing these folks together to advance manufacturing initiatives.
“Tax codes and regulatory schemes are a real problem,” Kail added. “Everybody is on board with getting good jobs, but we want to make sure that it’s efficient for our companies and done the right way. We are too dependent on foreign nations, and we are now seeing that it is a national security issue.”
“This is a team effort, and we need to be working together. Industry needs dependability and predictability,” Rep. Jonathan Fritz (Susquehanna/Wayne) agreed. Fritz has proposed a 45-day plan for approval of applications by the DEP. “They have 15 days to recognize an application as being administratively complete or not. When they are ready move forward, they would have 30 days to deem that application ‘approved.’”
“These are necessities. It has to be done,” Nobers remarked. “We really need to get our act together. If we don’t do this, there are 49 other states who will.”