Arizona has seen federal funding well into the billions of dollars for a variety of technological innovation efforts and economic assistance programs in the last 4 years, according to a new report.
The Washington-based Brooking Institute has put together a survey looking at the amount of federal funding that has gone to individual states through four federal initiatives: the American Rescue Plan Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPs and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act.
The size and number of individual programs funded by Washington, but being played out in the states, is the largest such transfer of funds since the days of the New Deal in the 1930s, with outcomes, according to the study, still to be determined in “dozens of cities, metropolitan areas, and rural communities across the country.”
The big money coming into Arizona has seen $400 million targeting the Amkor greenfield project in Peoria, a project designed, in part, to support advanced semiconductors for computing and artificial intelligence.
A copper recovery program in Safford has received upwards of $80 million for a program spearheaded by the Freeport Minerals Corporation designed to use geothermal and clean heat to increase copper production, while the Hoppi Utilities Corporation has been the recipient of $500,000 for the building of a large-scale solar project.
In Colorado, $50 million has gone to Solid Power Operating Incorporated for advancements in battery technology and battery materials, with the Denver-based Elevate Quantum receiving $41 million for advances in quantum information technology.
In New Mexico, a big $340 million has been approved for advanced packaging facilities belonging to Intel; with the SolAero company approved for nearly $24 million to build a resilient supply of space-grade solar cells designed to power spacecrafts and satellites.
The Brookings report, Sizing and Seizing Washington’s $40 Billion Down-Payment on Place-Based Industrial Policy, notes that, overall, most of the federal funding of the last four years has “targeted three strategic sectors: semiconductors, batteries, and clean energy.”
While the funding has made its way to all of the 50 states, adds the report, what are known as “labor market areas,” as defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, have been awarded “more than three-quarters of the overall funding.”
December 16, 2024
By Garry Boulard
Photo courtesy of Unsplash
