It’s time to stop giving Kentuckians false hope.
Here’s Governor Beshear’s statement on the matter:
“We are, of course, disappointed by today’s announcement that the NaaTBatt consortium’s proposal did not receive a grant award from the Department of Energy. However, we knew at the start that we were entering an extremely competitive process as evidenced by the fact that only 20 percent of applicants received awards. The bottom line is that we cannot and we will not let a brief setback deter us from our goals. You can’t win in economic development, ultimately, if you are not willing to compete. We will continue competing and we will win more than our share. With respect to today’s announcement, we plan to meet soon with our consortium partners to discuss what steps we may be able to take in the future together. With the continued strong bipartisan support that this initiative garnered, I am convinced Kentucky can and will be a central player in advanced auto manufacturing in the future. We have made significant strides already to that end. We are developing a federal lab with Argonne National Laboratory to conduct research on the car batteries of the future. Kentucky will serve as host this fall to a national battery conference and we are continuing discussions with several companies that are extremely interested in our efforts in this emerging area. Finally, our actions in this administration already have helped secure for the long term many of the 80,000 jobs related to the auto industry in Kentucky through our close partnership with Ford, Toyota and General Motors. That will be strengthened as Kentucky continues its role as one of the country’s major auto manufacturers.”
Thought everything was locked up and secure, Governor?
See the videos and read all about it here – along with a detailed comments section:
And here:
Thought there was no question that Kentucky would receive big time DoE money? Thought it was a done deal?
Here’s the Governor’s weekly schedule, according to his Communications Office:
Governor Beshear’s Public Schedule
Week of August 3 – August 9, 2009
(subject to change)Monday, August 3
All day – No public events scheduledTuesday, August 4
10 a.m – 1p.m. – In officeWednesday, August 5
9 a.m. – 5p.m. – In officeThursday, August 6
9a.m. – 5p.m. – In office
10 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. – Flags of Our Nation – Kentucky Stamp Unveiling – Capitol RotundaFriday, August 7
11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. – In officeSaturday, August 8
All day – No public events scheduledSunday, August 9
All day – No public events scheduled
Hope he’s using some of that time to get this thing done.
UPDATE
Click here (Warning: PDF Link) for a full list of grant recipients.
And here (Warning: PDF Link) for maps of awardee locations.
12 responses so far ↓
1 Curt Morrison // Aug 5, 2009 at 12:41 pm
That’s depressing. Especially to see all those other states surrounding us that did get grants.
Did the battery folks actually end up somewhere else or is there anyway we could keep them at the table with some kinda special state grant?
2 Steve Magruder (I, not D or R) // Aug 5, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Wow, and even all kinds of states without “right to work” got grants. I guess that makes that regular conservative Republican argument stillborn.
It’s like nobody is tending the store in Frankfort. And that’s a shame.
3 Ray Re // Aug 5, 2009 at 1:12 pm
It’s also called Kentucky being out of play in 2012, presidentially speaking. See Indiana and cop money for comparison.
4 jake // Aug 5, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Ray Re: So you’re saying Frankfort did everything it could to secure money and we just got dicked over by that Barack Obama because everybody in Kentucky voted against him?
How do you explain the skrilla going to 19 other states where he didn’t exactly, you know, win a ton of votes?
You’re unintentionally giving Frankfort a free pass, I think.
5 Ray Re // Aug 5, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Jake, Louisville wanted 90 cops, would have been pleased with 20,and got zero. It’s just my political hunch that Louisville, Missouri would have got some subsidized coppers.
6 SCAQMD // Aug 5, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Didn’t anybody notice that the award to the Southern Cal Air Quality Mgmt District to develop a plug-in hybrid include a manufacturing component in E’town? It ain’t much, but it’s a start, people!
7 Ray Re // Aug 5, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Jake, Louisville applied for 90 cops, would have been happy with 20, and got zero. It’s just my political hunch that Louisville, Missouri would have gotten some subsidized coppers. I wish Mitch would have worked for this plant instead of Anne’s job, but there you go. You take em where you get em I reckon.
8 jake // Aug 5, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Once again, Ray Re, you’re not telling the complete story.
I believe commenters on this site have discussed that there were myriad factors involved in Louisville not receiving federal grants for po-leece officers. There were many cities in Kentucky that did receive the funds.
9 Ray Re // Aug 5, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Jake, one factor of myriad could be spoils politics, right? Bush did it, too, he just wasn’t operating in this weird new world of insane federal power in picking winners and losers with borrowed cash. If I remember correctly, Indiana got 7 times Kentucky’s amount of cop bucks. Who won the Hoosier state?
10 Steve Magruder (I, not D or R) // Aug 5, 2009 at 4:02 pm
“he just wasn’t operating in this weird new world of insane federal power in picking winners and losers with borrowed cash”
Huh? This all started in the waning days of the Bush regime.
11 le gardien de but // Aug 5, 2009 at 4:32 pm
I can only wonder whether the weakness of our major universities–UL & UK–contributed to our losing this “competitive process”. University of Michigan, Purdue, Georgia Tech etc are in the top ten in academics as well as athletics…
As Novena & others have pointed out both U of L & UK are academically tier 3 schools…
If Tom Jurich & his ilk had focused their energy on cancer research, breast cancer would be history; no offense to the Tom Jurich’s of this world–they are only pleasing their masters….
12 Thunder Storm // Aug 5, 2009 at 5:29 pm
this is just so par for the course for Beshear, get everyones hopes up, mislead, innuendo and then rip therug right out from under our feet. Way to go one termer!
Leave a Comment