State lawmakers pushed a nearly $900 million spending package related to a planned Ford Motor Co. electric vehicle assembly plant in West Tennessee another step forward Tuesday.
The accelerated timeline in the special session called by GOP Gov. Bill Lee could result in an adjournment as soon as Wednesday after the session kicked off Monday. Bills related to the project — which includes $500 million in grants to Ford and its battery partner and hundreds of millions of state spending on infrastructure and a new technical college at the site — moved through state House and Senate committees Tuesday and could see final floor votes in both chambers Wednesday.
The deal is creating strange partners as the GOP-dominated legislature pushes through funds for a project heralded both by environmentalists and unions, both largely derided by Tennessee Republicans. Democrats, meanwhile, have found themselves arguing that the legislature should leave businesses alone, typically the position of legislative Republicans, in relation to a bill unrelated to Ford that GOP members are trying to pass. House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) said Monday that Ford employees would “probably” vote down a union, and members in both chambers urged administration officials to make sure Ford doesn’t require union representation of its partners and contractors.
Lee sent his top advisers to the House and Senate on Tuesday, with finance commissioner Butch Eley, economic development commissioner Bob Rolfe, chief operating officer Brandon Gibson, general services commissioner Christi Branscom and outgoing chief counsel Lang Wiseman among those answering questions from members.
Asked about possibly requiring Ford to deal with nonunion shops, Eley said: “We can encourage our customers to follow the local practices. But I can assure you if we wrote into the accountability that the state was going to be dictating certain requirements, that would likely be a deal-killer for this project.”
Lawmakers raised some concerns about the wide-ranging proposal, including about the need for urgency when Ford hasn’t even finalized its battery partnership yet, public record carveouts for the new government entity to manage the site and the prospect of legislative oversight of the new authority.
Accountability measures in the deal include a clawback provision — if Ford and its partners haven’t hired at least 90 percent of the promised nearly 6,000 workers within 10 years of the project’s start date, the state can seek some money back. Sen. Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield) said that the new board overseeing the project was being granted “an extraordinary amount of power” and that audits and accountability should be prioritized.
The joint venture between Ford and battery maker SK Innovation will be negotiated in the first quarter of 2022, according to administration officials. One of the first steps should the proposal be approved by the legislature will be moving forward on wastewater treatment infrastructure, to be built and operated by the state and in operation by July 2023, if everything goes according to plan.
“We simply need to get moving,” Eley said.
Despite the significance of the spending being considered in the three-day session, House lawmakers spent several hours Tuesday debating a bill, unrelated to the Ford project, that appears doomed to fail regardless with no Senate interest in taking it up. Legislation passed in a special session must be related to the reason the meeting was called. House Republicans said the bill, which would add new rules restricting government and business powers to mandate masks or COVID-19 vaccines, qualified to be considered in the special session because it would be “beneficial” to the Ford project. Lee has previously said the special session should remain focused on Ford-specific bills, and Senate Speaker Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) clearly disagrees with the House interpretation, saying the bill would not be considered in the Senate.
Asked whether the proposal might scare Ford off, sponsor Rep. Jason Zachary (R-Knoxville) said, “I could care less what Ford thinks.”
“Man, I thought I was coming up here to split up a billion dollars,” Democratic Rep. G.A. Hardaway of Memphis said.
Republicans will have another chance at similar proposals, though, as the House and Senate joined Tuesday to call another special session to follow the ongoing meetings and whose purview will include COVID-19 mandates.
