Past administrations cut public investment and gave tax breaks to the wealthy. These trickle-down economic policies left behind too many communities across the country. Infrastructure deteriorated, manufacturers shipped jobs abroad, economic opportunity dwindled, and regional inequality grew. China's unfair trade practices further undermined American manufacturers and workers in industrial communities.
President Biden came into office with a new vision and promised to invest in every community across the country, particularly left-behind communities, such as economically distressed areas, factory towns, and coal communities. Over the past four years, in every piece of economic legislation, the Biden-Harris Administration has worked tirelessly to deliver a surge in resources and supports to local leaders, workers, and businesses, enabling communities to turn setback into comeback. In the first three years of the Biden-Harris Administration, left-behind counties experienced their strongest three-year period of job creation and business growth since the turn of the century, growing four times faster per year than under the first three years of the previous administration.
To cement this legacy and drive continued progress for communities across the country, today, President Biden will sign a new Executive Order to help left-behind communities make a comeback. The Executive Order follows the Department of Commerce's recent announcement of $235 in new awards for critical regional economic development initiatives and the re-authorization of the Economic Development Administration.
EXECUTIVE ORDER ON HELPING LEFT-BEHIND COMMUNITIES MAKE A COMEBACK
Today, President Biden will sign his landmark Executive Order on Helping Left-Behind Communities Make a Comeback, which will help ensure that the federal government continues to direct investments and resources to left-behind and distressed communities that deserve renewed economic opportunity. Specifically, this Executive Order:
- Prioritizes left-behind communities for economic development funding opportunities. The Order prioritizes communities facing economic distress, undergoing industrial transitions, emerging as innovation hubs, and rebuilding from natural disasters.
- Directs whole-of-government coordination of federal investments in left-behind communities that are receiving multiple economic development awards. The Order encourages agencies to work directly with communities on a cohesive strategy to improve local economic conditions.
- Establishes a "No Wrong Door" approach. This Order directs federal agencies to identify and guide communities to economic development resources in other federal agencies, including technical assistance programs and offices. This approach is critical so individuals and communities do not have to navigate the complicated maze of different agencies. Economically distressed communities often have limited capacity to identify federal grant funding.
- Strengthens resilience in disaster prone and affected communities. The Order directs federal agency field staff in areas that have recently suffered from natural disasters to identify funding opportunities to address long-term economic development, infrastructure, and resiliency needs.
ANNOUNCING $235 MILLION IN NEW AWARDS
Earlier this week, the Biden-Harris Administration announced a total of $235 million in new awards to support critical regional economic development initiatives.
The Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration announced $210 million across six new awards under the flagship Tech Hubs program, bringing the total amount of Tech Hubs funding announced to date to over $700 million. The Tech Hubs program invests in regions across the country that have the assets to become globally competitive in industries of the future, strengthening national and economic security while ensuring the benefits of innovation reach communities all across America. Tech Hubs awards fund consortia with public, private, and academic partners. The awards will support:
- American Aerospace Materials Manufacturing Tech Hub (WA) – $48 million: Led by American Aerospace Materials Manufacturing Center, this Tech Hub aims to develop new domestic supply chains to meet the immediate demand for high-rate production of advanced composite aerostructures in defense and commercial markets.
- Corvallis Microfluidics Tech Hub (OR) – $45 million: Led by Oregon State University, this Tech Hub aims to establish global leadership in the development, scaling, and commercialization of microfluidics technology for use in semiconductor cooling, continuous flow processing, and biotechnology.
- Birmingham Biotechnology Hub (AL) - $44 million: Led by Southern Research Institute, this Tech Hub aims to become a global leader in drug, vaccine, and diagnostics development by applying artificial intelligence (AI)-driven biotechnology to increase diverse representation in clinical genomic data and clinical trials.
- Critical Minerals and Materials for Advanced Energy (CM2AE) Tech Hub (MO) – $28 million: Led by the University of Missouri System, this Tech Hub aims to position south-central Missouri as a global leader in critical minerals processing to provide the materials needed to support battery technology.
- Vermont Gallium Nitride Tech Hub (VT) – $24 million: Led by the University of Vermont, this Tech Hub seeks to accelerate the development and adoption of high power, high frequency electronic devices using Gallium Nitride (GaN)-based semiconductor chips.
- Forest Bioproducts Advanced Manufacturing Tech Hub (ME) – $22 million: Led by the Maine Technology Institute, this Tech Hub aims to become a global leader in forest-based biomaterial production and manufacturing by extracting biological building blocks from forests, manipulating them for use, and manufacturing environmentally sustainable products from those components.
The Economic Development Administration also awarded a total of $25 million across eight awards under the Good Jobs Challenge to support high-quality, locally led workforce training programs that lead to workers placed into good jobs. These new awards expand EDA's Good Jobs Challenge portfolio to 35 states and one territory and increase the portfolio's overall job placements target to 53,000.
PRESIDENT BIDEN'S RECORD OF INVESTING IN LEFT-BEHIND COMMUNITIES
This Executive Order and $235 million in new awards build on four years of actions taken by the Biden-Harris Administration to invest in left-behind communities.
Supporting communities through industrial transitions:
The Biden-Harris Administration's Investing in America agenda is mobilizing historic levels of private sector investment in the United States, bringing manufacturing back to America, and creating good-paying jobs. President Biden is committed to ensuring that these new private sector investments flow to communities that are undergoing industrial transitions and have faced prior job losses in the manufacturing and energy sectors.
In February 2021, President Biden established the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization (Energy Communities IWG) to deliver resources to the coal, oil and gas, and power plant communities that have powered our country for generations but faced increasing unemployment and economic distress in recent decades. The Energy Communities IWG is helping local leaders in Energy Communities create good-paying jobs, spur economic revitalization, remediate environmental degradation, and support energy workers. Key accomplishments of the Energy Communities IWG include:
- Awarding over $54 billion in federal investments to Energy Communities, such as the $4 billion set aside in Inflation Reduction Act tax credits for clean energy manufacturing investments in Energy Communities;
- Catalyzing $315 billion in announced job-creating private sector investments in clean energy and manufacturing;
- Launching Rapid Response Teams to provide on-the-ground assistance to local leaders in the Energy Communities that have faced the most significant declines in economic opportunity; and
- Forging a partnership with AmeriCorps to place 150 full-time AmeriCorps members in nine federally designated Energy Communities.
President Biden has made strategic investments to ensure that the future of the global auto industry is made in historic American auto communities by American workers. For example, the Biden-Harris Administration announced over $1 billion in financing to support small- and medium-sized auto suppliers, a $52 million grant to the Detroit Regional Partnership to unite around and implement a common vision for Detroit's legacy automotive industry, billions of dollars in awards to support new electric vehicle and battery materials manufacturing sites in the American Midwest, and new workforce development initiatives to prepare workers for these good-paying jobs.
Helping economically distressed regions turn setback into comeback:
The Biden-Harris Administration recognizes that distressed communities suffering from a downward spiral of disinvestment may not have the capacity to access the Biden-Harris Administration's historic investments. President Biden has launched and expanded programs to equip distressed communities with the resources they need to make a comeback, including:
- Regional Commissions - Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: Structured as federal-state partnerships servicing different regions of the country, Regional Commissions make place-based investments in technical assistance, capacity building, economic development, workforce, and infrastructure. President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law appropriated the six Regional Commissions over $1 billion in additional funding to help local economies and distressed communities attract historic public and private investments in manufacturing, infrastructure, and clean energy. President Biden also secured the authorization of the Great Lakes Authority, which, once operational, will serve the Midwest.
- Good Jobs Challenge - American Rescue Plan: The Good Jobs Challenge is a $525 million program supporting 40 regional, industry-led workforce training systems that will place a total of 50,000 workers into good jobs, helping to accelerate local economic growth and rebuild resilient regional economies. The program places an emphasis on supporting historically underserved populations and distressed communities, including rural, urban-core, disaster-impacted, and coal communities. Most awardees are leveraging the funding to offer flexible workforce solutions such as technology or language support, affordable childcare, and transportation services.
- Recompete Pilot Program ("Recompete") - CHIPS & Science Act: Recompete is investing in six distressed communities across the country to support innovative strategies to create good-paying jobs and stimulate local economic growth. These awards are supporting workforce training, wraparound services, critical infrastructure, entrepreneurship, and small business creation.
The Rural Partners Network: This is a whole-of-government initiative that sends federal staff to 25 rural communities across the country. Rural communities such as the Tri-County North Delta, which borders the Mississippi River, are getting help accessing federal resources through local federal offices or federal partnerships with the local chamber of commerce, higher-education institutions, philanthropies, and workforce development organizations.
Investing in innovation in places across the country:
Before President Biden came to office, innovation had begun to concentrate on the coasts of our country. From 2005 to 2017, just five metro areas represented more than 90 percent of the nation's innovation-sector growth. This left entire regions out of a critical driver of economic development and put America at a disadvantage by failing to invest in the talent and ideas that are located across the country. The President's innovation and manufacturing programs target places that have been overlooked for too long - including rural communities, Energy Communities, and employment distressed regions.
The Biden-Harris Administration has pursued a consortia-based approach to investing in innovation in regions across the country, which equips community leaders with competitively awarded federal funding to implement locally tailored solutions. Consortia of businesses, local governments, academic institutions, non-profit organizations, and labor are implementing projects to stimulate innovation and economic growth such as developing workforce training, building new laboratories, and incubating startups. These consortia-based innovation programs include:
- Build Back Better Regional Challenge (BBBRC) - American Rescue Plan: BBBRC awarded $1 billion to 21 coalitions to transform their regional economies by growing a particular local industry - including transportation, agriculture, and advanced manufacturing. To grow these critical industries, awardees are investing in workforce training, wraparound services, industrial site redevelopment, and small business incubators and accelerators. Two years into the five-year implementation period, these 21 regional coalitions have catalyzed $2.2 billion in local private investment, generated 1,300 new jobs, and helped create 275 new businesses.
- Regional Technology & Innovation Hubs Program ("Tech Hubs") - CHIPS & Science Act: The Tech Hubs program is investing in regions across the country that have the assets necessary to become globally competitive hubs in industries of the future - strengthening U.S. economic and national security, while ensuring that innovation helps drive economic growth in communities across America. This program designated 31 Tech Hubs that consist of consortia with public, private, and academic partners, 18 of which received large-scale implementation grants totaling more than $700 million. Over one-third of awardees serve small and rural communities.
- Regional Innovation Engines Program ("NSF Engines") - CHIPS & Science Act: NSF Engines is investing at least $200 million in ten regional innovation initiatives across the country. The funding is focused on places that have not fully benefitted from technology-driven economic growth over the past decades. Each awardee is leveraging their private, public, and nonprofit sectors to research solutions and train their workforce for key sectors such as energy storage, regenerative medicine, and textile manufacturing innovation.
- Microelectronics Commons ("ME Commons") - CHIPS & Science Act: ME Commons is designed to advance America's microelectronics capabilities through a collaborative national network of innovation hubs.
