Oregon’s governor Ted Kulongoski and Sanyo executives donned Japanese red robes on top of their business suits. With giant wooden mallets in hand, they smashed open two giant barrels of sake. The traditional Japanese wine is used to toast the opening of a building. Drunk from small wooden boxes, called masu, the opening on this day is for Sanyo Solar of Oregon. The new plant will provide Salem with nearly 200 jobs that will pay well above the Oregon average wage. Starting today, the plant could turn out several hundred thousands solar panels every year.
The incentives that got Sanyo Electronics, and many other new Oregon businesses, interested in the state are currently under fire. An investigation by the Oregonian Newspaper claims that the estimates of how much the Business Energy Tax Credits would cost the state were purposefully underestimated in order to get the state’s legislators to buy into the concept. Memos acquired from the Oregon Department of Energy show the green tax breaks costing a range between one point two and 13 million dollars. The newspaper says cost attributed to the tax incentives turns out to be around 40 million in 2007-2008.
“We are now competing globally,” says Oregon’s chief executive, “with companies that every day decide where to locate and bring jobs”. The governor says because the tax incentives can be used over five years, can be postponed another three years, or could be applied to three years prior—that pinning down the exact cost of any one year is incredibly difficult. Governor Kulongoski says he has already directed the Oregon Department of Energy to tweak administrative rules so the Business Energy Tax Credit program can be used more for what it was intended to do: bring high paying, renewable energy jobs to Oregon.
“I think the program has some issues that we’re going to look at,” says Kulongoski. He touts the Sanyo plant as just one of a half dozen solar manufacturing plants that are recent additions to the state. He says Oregon ranks first in all of North America when it comes to solar generation and 5th in the nation when it comes to creating wind power.
Salem mayor, Janet Taylor, defends the incentives and thinks the critique of the Governor is overblown. “Listen it’s a very competitive world out there and in our nation,” says Mayor Taylor. “There are states that give free land, other states will pay your employees salaries for six months. So, I think it’s necessary to get a new industry going you have to find those incentives."
Kulongoski says companies he’s helped recruit with in the last two years are now investing billions in the Oregon economy and have brought nearly a thousand jobs. Back from a recent trip from Europe and last year’s trip to Asia to woo businesses—he says he’s not done yet. “I actually think that I will spend the last 14 months of my term as governor promoting this state trying to get companies, like Sanyo to come to this state.
