Senate OKs bill to recoup state investment in mill project

“There’s a limit to everyone’s patience,” Republican Sen. Phillip Wheeler said.

The vote reflected mounting frustration over the delayed project. The legislation would direct the state to recover its $15 million investment — along with any interest, penalties or fees included in the agreement — by the end of this year. If the money isn’t recouped by then, the bill would direct the state to begin legal action to seek full recovery.

“That’s $15 million of taxpayer money which is owed back to the commonwealth,” said Republican Sen. Chris McDaniel, the bill’s lead sponsor.

Lawmakers have said they still hope the company can deliver on its promise.

In a statement Wednesday, the company said it “continues to work tirelessly on this critical opportunity. We’re encouraged by the progress we have made and remain focused on bringing the project to fruition, not politics.”

Amid great fanfare, the company had announced plans to build the Appalachian plant, projecting it would create more than 1,000 constructions jobs, 550 full-time mill jobs and thousands of indirect jobs in a region in need of the jobs.

Then-Gov. Matt Bevin persuaded lawmakers to approve the state’s $15 million investment in 2017. The company at that time planned to have the mill open in 2020. But it has struggled to complete financing for the project, and the company underwent a high-profile management shakeup.

Eastern Kentucky has taken “a lot of gut punches” in the past decade — with the decline of the coal industry along with economic development projects that offered great promise only to “fall through the cracks,” Wheeler said Wednesday.

“It’s unfortunate that this appears to be another one,” he said.

He said he hopes the company can get its “act together and provide the jobs that they promised to the commonwealth when we advanced them these funds.”

Meanwhile, a Kentucky Senate committee advanced a bill Wednesday aimed at overcoming the state’s chronic nursing shortage that worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The bill would lift enrollment limits in nursing programs and accelerate licensing for out-of-state nurses to work in Kentucky. It cleared the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, moving on to the full Senate. Senate President Robert Stivers is sponsoring the bill with Sen. Robby Mills.

In December, Gov. Andy Beshear declared the state’s nursing shortage to be an emergency. The governor pointed to projections that Kentucky will need more than 16,000 additional nurses by 2024, to help fill gaps caused by retirements and people leaving the profession.

Under the bill, enrollment limits would be lifted for nursing programs with at least an 80% average rate of students who passed the licensure exam in the previous three years.

“Instead of having some type of artificial or arbitrary number that this institution or that institution should have this many people to be admitted, we felt we needed to get rid of everything and just let the market take its course,” Stivers told the committee.

The bill would accelerate the process for nurses from other states or countries to get licensed in Kentucky “without compromising the standard of care,” Mills said.

The Unity Aluminum-related legislation is Senate Bill 48. The nursing bill is SB10.