Licking County Intel project back in focus amid call for investigation

A massive economic development project for Licking County and Ohio is back in focus following calls for an investigation into whether the company building semiconductor manufacturing plants misused federal dollars.

Intel is building two semiconductor manufacturing plants in New Albany. The federal government gave Intel nearly $7.9 billion in taxpayer money last year from the federal CHIPS Act, and the Buckeye State contributed hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives.

“Intel has been a hope for America to build out more chip capacity and has struggled to do so to date,” Janet Egan, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told the BBC. “It’s important that we get continuity of leadership to support that ramping up of capacity.”

The timeline for the $28 billion project has repeatedly been adjusted. However, in recent months, many in the Buckeye State have raised questions about whether the project will come to fruition.

“We’re never getting the jobs we were promised, we’re never getting the economic development we were promised,” state Sen. Bill DeMora, D-Columbus, told the Ohio Capital Journal. “All that’s happened is we spent a lot of state money on infrastructure, drove up property rates for all the people that live there, and now we’ve got a boondoggle.”

Last week, President Trump called for Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign. Now, the Intel head is set to visit the White House.

“Intel probably misread the room on how important it was to get in and be visible with the White House,” Patrick Moorhead, founder of Moor Insights & Strategy, told the BBC.

Trump’s comment follows a letter Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton sent to Intel Chairman Frank Yeary, raising concern over the Intel chief executive’s investments and ties to semiconductor firms linked to the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army. Before his role at Intel, Tan was CEO of Cadence Design Systems.

The company “pleaded guilty to illegally selling its products to a Chinese military university and transferring its technology to an associated Chinese semiconductor company without obtaining licenses,” Cotton wrote in the letter. “These illegal activities occurred under Mr. Tan’s tenure.”

In an interview with The Columbus Dispatch, Republican U.S. Sen.  Bernie Moreno said that there should be more efforts to hold Intel accountable for the delays at its Ohio factory. Additionally, he said the company should be examined to ensure it hasn’t misused public funding for the Licking County project.

“We knew from the day we started there was nothing certain,” DeWine said, per WBNS-TV. “We knew they wanted to move quickly but that it depended on the sales.”

According to a recent report, there has been a slowdown on the construction site.

“An awful lot of the workers who were on site are now working on other projects in Licking County,” Licking County Commissioner Tim Bubb told WBNS-TV. “They’ve made no bones about the construction companies having to lay off and/or back off on the level of construction on the site.”

Added Bubb: “Promises made but promises not kept. The promise was 3,000 employees by 2026 and manufacturing the next generation of silicon chips.”

Republican Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel has offered some support for the project, calling for patience.

“Nothing’s easy, especially in a changing industry like the one they’re in, but they’ve already made a lot of investment and they’re still working on it,” Tressel said Thursday, per the Ohio Capital Journal.

“We have contractual things that have to be met, I don’t think those are for a couple more years, but I understand the frustration,” Tressel added. “Big things are hard; sometimes the progress doesn’t happen like you’d like it to.”