Schumer announces $100B investment for central New York

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is running for a fifth term, announced Tuesday that Micron Technology Inc. has committed to investing $100 billion in central New York over the next two decades thanks in large part to the passage of a bill this summer to boost investment in the domestic semiconductor industry.

“After years of work, it’s official —Micron is coming to Central New York! With the passage of the CHIPS and Science bill I wrote and championed, the investments we are making are already paying off,” Schumer said in a statement, once again hailing passing of the CHIPS bill, which Republicans threatened to block over the summer.

Schumer on Tuesday said Micron’s $100 billion investment in upstate New York will “fundamentally transform” the Syracuse area.

He said it would turn upstate New York into a global chip manufacturing hub and create tens of thousands of high-tech and construction jobs.

Micron announced separately Tuesday that it intends to invest up to $100 billion over the next “20-plus years” to construct what it called a “new megafab” in Clay, New York.

The company said this represents the largest private investment in New York history.

It estimates it will create nearly 50,000 New York jobs, including about 9,000 Micron jobs.

Schumer spearheaded passage of the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act in July despite a threat by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) to block the legislation if Senate Democrats were still pursuing a budget reconciliation package that raised taxes.

Schumer kept his late-round negotiations with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) secret until hours after the semiconductor bill passed, then announced a deal with the West Virginia senator to raise $346 billion in revenue by setting a 15 percent corporate minimum tax and beefing up the IRS’s budget.

That deft maneuver allowed Democrats to pass both their semiconductor bill and a budget reconciliation package to fight climate change and lower prescription drug costs.

Schumer is cruising to an easy reelection victory, but he’s always keen to claim credit for the hundreds of billions of dollars he steers back to his home state thanks to his seniority and power in Congress.

During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, Schumer helped deliver what he said at the time would be $100 billion for New York state in the $3.4 trillion CARES Act.

And last month the senior senator from New York pushed to add $1 billion in emergency funding to the short-term government funding bill to offset the cost of rising home heating bills for residents in New York’s capital region surrounding Albany.

Micron, which is based in Boise, Idaho, is the fourth-largest producer of semiconductors in the world and has plants in Singapore and Taiwan.

Schumer met with Micron President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra in May 2021 to pitch the company on locating its “megafab” plant in New York and proposed several sites across his state.

“This is our Erie Canal moment. Just as the original Erie Canal did centuries ago, this 21st Century Erie Canal will flow through the heart of Central New York and keep America the leader in the global economy for generations to come,” Schumer said.

Updated at 2:31 p.m.

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