‘I’m A Little Bit Worried’: Kathy Castor Raises Concern About GOP’s ‘Partisan’ Proposed Budget

5 months ago

During a House Energy & Commerce Committee hearing last week, Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) questioned Sec. of Commerce Gina Raimondo about economic development grants and small businesses.

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Transcript

00:00A lady from Florida, Representative Castor. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Welcome Madam Secretary. You

00:06are a champion for American businesses, American workers, American competitiveness. You are a

00:11strong and effective leader for the Commerce Department and it is appreciated. Some of the

00:19economic development grants that come out of Commerce have paid such huge dividends for my

00:25booming Tampa Bay area. Many of the, just the simple EDA grants to help our tech accelerators

00:35have turned the Tampa Bay area into what was an economy relying on tourism and real estate and

00:44some, and we have a good active port, but now we're a tech startup community. We're a community,

00:51we don't have a lot of big Fortune 500 companies and big corporations. We rely

00:55on the entrepreneurial spirit and it has paid huge dividends. We have small businesses growing and

01:02thriving. The wages are higher and the Tampa Bay wave is our, is one of our leading accelerators

01:11in the area and I just want to thank your entire team for what they've done over the years in

01:18targeting those investments to our accelerators. Most recently, Tampa Bay Wave has received a grant

01:25from NOAA under the Ocean-Based Climate Resilience Accelerators Initiative funded by the Landmark

01:32Inflation Reduction Act. What they are telling me is that they now are bringing together

01:40new startup companies across the state of Florida. They heard the message that the agency put out to

01:47do more partnering, so they're partnering with South Florida Accelerator. They're taking your

01:54design and development funds and now are going for the next round of funding to support startups

02:00and entrepreneurs working on ocean-based climate resilience, attracting capital,

02:04maturing their technologies, scaling business models for climate challenges and economic

02:09developments. But I have, I'm a little bit worried now looking ahead, looking at the

02:15proposed budget, the fiscal year budget proposed by the Republicans, that their partisan bill would

02:23cut commerce, economic development assistance for local communities by a large amount. It looks like

02:29almost, maybe more than 10%. What will this do to our ability to grow these small businesses

02:37and entrepreneurs if they, if you have to suffer through significant cuts like this? Yeah, thank you

02:42for your question. You know, the work that I do that gets all of the attention, of course, is the

02:48CHIPS Act, you know, six billion dollars to Intel, eight billion dollars to TSMC. The reality is that's

02:54a small number of companies. Most Americans, the vast majority of Americans work for small businesses,

03:01entrepreneurial businesses, family-owned businesses, and that's the work of EDA, like small grants,

03:07one community at a time, rural, coastal, urban, and a cut to EDA will hurt every community in America,

03:15like literally. Red states, blue states, rural, urban, because these are small amounts of money

03:22for workforce training, building facilities, incubators, and sometimes it's the only money that these

03:32partnerships are really eligible for. You know, they're not going to get venture capital money,

03:36these aren't going to be, it's not, your companies aren't, it's not the next Google necessarily,

03:41but it's a nice business. So I think it would be deeply unfortunate. This is bipartisan work.

03:49It helps support communities all over America. It doesn't get a lot of attention, but people in your

03:56community and all of your communities will feel it if it gets cut. It gets a lot of attention across

04:01the Tampa Bay Area because of the small investment from commerce and EDA now is attracting

04:0810, 20 times the amount in private investment and capital. And then sticking with NOAA a little bit,

04:17it's an interesting part of commerce, but it's an important one. You said you're going to focus

04:22on growing fundamental science research and then combine it with a new outlet for supply chains,

04:29and that sounds like that would help us with the nascent offshore wind industry that we're trying to

04:36to grow in America. It would pay great dividends if we can lower the cost of energy, use clean

04:43energy, and I'd like to know how is Department of Commerce and NOAA thinking about wind research,

04:51permitting development, and how the new emphasis on supply chain focus could help

04:57lift this industry in the good paying jobs it provides. Yeah, exactly. President Biden has set

05:02a goal of 30 gigawatts by 2030 of offshore wind. I will say as the governor of Rhode Island,

05:08we had the first offshore wind installation in North America. I know a lot about this. It created

05:15so many jobs, lowered the cost of energy and electricity, and got a lot of people in Rhode

05:21Island off of diesel and oil. Permitting still takes too long. I'll be the first to say it,

05:27and so we are working very hard. I personally have been engaged in an effort to try to streamline the

05:34permitting. We've asked for money in the budget to help to do that, to streamline the permitting so

05:40we can go faster to hit the goal and also create jobs. Thank you very much. I yield back.

‘I’m A Little Bit Worried’: Kathy Castor Raises Concern About GOP’s ‘Partisan’ Proposed Budget

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