Here & Now

Erpenbach: Let's Slow Down Foxconn Deal to "Do It Right"

Frederica Freyberg:

We go now to the other side of the aisle and to the state capitol to hear from a Democratic member of the Joint Finance Committee, Senator Jon Erpenbach. Thanks a lot for joining us.

Jon Erpenbach:

My pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:

First out of the gates, I want to ask you what is your reaction to the Assembly Minority Leader voting in favor of the Foxconn bill?

Jon Erpenbach:

Representative Barca has to do what he feels he needs to do for his district that he represents which rumor has it Foxconn would be locating in that part of the state. So I understand why he did what he did. I would just hoped the bill would have been better. Would have been safer for taxpayers coming out of the Assembly. And would have been better for the environment as well. But there are those of us who have done this for a while who understand why Peter did what did he.

Frederica Freyberg:

There's some talk of Foxconn siting some location in Dane County. Do you favor it at this juncture?

Jon Erpenbach:

I don’t favor the bill at this juncture to begin with which I’m sure we’re going to get into in a little bit. But Foxconn right now could be looking up at the Fox Valley for a satellite-type of a situation or Dane County for a satellite-type of a situation. But it does sound like the bulk of what we’re talking about and what the governor is talking about would be in southeastern Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

So as to the bill, Joint Finance is expected to take it up next week. What kind of changes would you be looking for?

Jon Erpenbach:

Well, there’s two aspects to this bill. We’re giving away a lot of our taxpayers’ money here in the state of Wisconsin. We’re going to foot about 15% of their cost to build, which is about $1.5 billion. And then another $1.5 billion down the line in tax credits. So I'm concerned about that, first of all. And that’s assuming that they reach the 13,000 job goal and that’s assuming that there are no changes whatsoever in the market that they happen to be in through 2045 I believe it is until we start getting some of our money back, which really is unrealistic. And the second aspect and just as important, it’s a total environmental giveaway by the state of Wisconsin. Just the idea of no environmental impact on a project this size is staggering along with some of the other environmental issues. There needs to be better protections for taxpayers in this legislation. And there needs to be better environmental protections in this legislation. Then you also have to bring in something that I don’t know if the governor considered or not, is the Army Corps of Engineers as to whether or not they need to sign off on this. And we’re also involved in the Great Lakes Compact and whether or not that becomes an issue. And to be honest with you Fred, this reminds me a lot of Gogebic. Remember the mining legislation that passed through the legislature that the governor signed into law? Promised thousands of jobs. Governor never reached out to the Army Corps of Engineers. Never reached out to the tribe either. And as a result, that law passed but the mine was never built because of that. I fear that the governor is getting people’s hopes up and isn’t really crossing all of the T's and dotting all of the I's in other agencies that we need to work with right now.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you think Democrats might see some of their changes in the Senate as opposed to the Assembly where 23 of their amendments were rejected?

Jon Erpenbach:

I would hope there would be changes. Everybody wants these jobs. Democrats want the jobs. Republicans want the jobs. To be honest with you, politically, the governor needs these jobs. But at the same time, you can’t have a project at this size and this scope without an environmental impact. That’s just unbelievably irresponsible. You also cannot let Foxconn basically walk away without really paying any corporate taxes whatsoever in the end because what we haven’t talked about is they would be eligible for other tax breaks outside of what the governor is giving them already. So in the end, their tax liability to the state could be absolutely zero. That’s not fair either.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile, the budget is still hanging out there and the Republican Senate Leader —

Jon Erpenbach:

Oh, yeah, the budget.

Frederica Freyberg:

— wants to finish that at the same time or very close to this Foxconn bill. How do you think it should be handled?

Jon Erpenbach:

Well, I'm not certain you can do one without the other because there’s going to be about $15 million for Foxconn in this budget that hasn’t passed yet. Obviously the budget is moving forward. There’s going to be checks written for a couple hundred million dollars in each year moving forward. So we need to look at that in the future. But in the meantime, school districts right now are trying to figure out how much money they’re going to have. When it comes to staffing levels in our correctional institutions, which are desperately needed, they don’t know what they’re looking at. Obviously the transportation builders are wondering what the hell’s going on. They don’t want to put projects on hold. If they put them on hold because we haven’t passed the budget, that’s going to cost taxpayers more money down the line. So ideally we’d get the budget done and then we would deal with Foxconn because there’s no rush on Foxconn. We need to be slow. We need to be deliberate. We need to make sure we get this right. Because if we don’t get this right, taxpayers are on the hook for a tremendous amount of money and there’s no turning back.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Senator Jon Erpenbach, thanks very much for joining us.

Jon Erpenbach:

All right. Thanks.