Virginia regularly awards grants, tax breaks and other goodies to businesses that move to the state or expand their operations, sometimes even for small projects that produce just a dozen or so jobs.
But Amazon's announcement Tuesday that it plans to put at least 25,000 highly paid new workers in a new Arlington headquarters is no ordinary economic development deal. Likewise, the incentive package that comes with it is unlike any the state has ever offered.
Cold hard cash is a major part of the package, but state and local officials are quick to point to other incentives used to lure Amazon that have broad benefits, including massive investments in higher education and public transportation.
Here's some highlights of what's in in the deal:
CASH:
Virginia's contract with Amazon agrees to pay the online retailer up to $750 million if it creates 37,850 jobs by 2039. Virginia's grants are divided into two phases, with the state paying $22,000 per job for the first 25,000 jobs, for a total of $550 million in grants to the company. For any additional jobs, the company would get $15,564 per employee. Amazon won't get paid until after the jobs are created.
Stephen Moret, head of the state's economic development agency, said the per-job figure is not even in the top 10 of what the state has previously paid to other companies. In current dollars, Virginia has paid as much as $80,000 per job for some economic development deals, he said.
Virginia's per-job incentive is effectively only about a third of what Amazon is getting from New York, where Amazon is also planning a new 25,000 employee expansion.
Moret said Virginia made a "conscious decision" not to try to lure Amazon with over-the-top cash grants but instead focus on a more comprehensive pitch.
Arlington county is also promising to give Amazon a share of its hotel tax, which it said would add up to $23 million over 15 years if Amazon meets its predicted job-creation targets.
HIGHER EDUCATION:
A lynchpin of Virginia's bid to Amazon is the state's promises to double the number of students who graduate each year with bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science and related fields. The state plans to spend $375 million to boost the number of tech-related master's degrees at George Mason University and Virginia Tech, which is planning to open a $1 billion graduate campus near the new Amazon headquarters.
State officials expect roughly half of Amazon's new jobs at the Virginia headquarters will be tech jobs.
Christina Winn, director of business investment for Arlington's economic development office, said Virginia Tech's planned expansion is the key overlooked piece of the deal.
"It's going to be a catalyst for the whole region," she said.
TRANSPORTATION:
The state is also promising to put up to $295 million into five transportation projects. They are a connector bridge from Crystal City to Reagan National Airport, improvements to a major thoroughfare, two new Metro station entrances — including to an as-yet-to-be built station — and expansion of transit service in the area. Local governments said they've committed to spend $570 million on a collection of projects that will directly benefit Amazon's new employees.
Virginia also agreed to help Amazon build and operate a helipad at its new site at the company's expense.
HOUSING:
The Virginia Housing Development Agency plans to spend an extra $15 million a year on to promote affordable housing in areas affected by Amazon's new headquarters for the next five years, according to Gov. Ralph Northam's office. The quasi-governmental agency is funded through the sale of securities and loans to private investors.
Arlington and the city of Alexandria plan to use new revenues from Amazon to fund at least $15 million in the next decade to create and preserve 2,000 to 2,400 units of affordable housing.
EXTRAS:
Virginia's contract with Amazon contains strict language on what the state can reveal through public records requests. Moret said the intent is to protect Amazon's proprietary information, not to circumvent the state's open records laws.
The state also promises to "foster an innovative economy" and help implement "forward-looking regulatory frameworks" that promote competition, new technologies and clean energy. Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne said that clause of the contract was meant as a signal to innovative companies in all fields that Virginia wants to work with them.
"It's really saying that Virginia is moving forward," he said.
Associated Press writer Matthew Barakat contributed from Falls Church, Virginia.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The United States and its allies are discussing options “both inside and outside the U.N. system” to create a new mechanism for monitoring North Korea over its nuclear weapons program, the American ambassador to the United Nations said Wednesday.
Russia last month vetoed a U.N. resolution in a move that effectively abolished monitoring by U.N. experts of Security Council sanctions against North Korea, which prompted Western accusations that Moscow was acting to shield its arms purchases from North Korea to fuel its war in Ukraine.
“I look forward to engaging with both the Republic of Korea and Japan, but like-minded (countries) as well, on trying to develop options both inside the U.N. as well as outside the U.N. The point here is that we cannot allow the work that the panel of experts were doing to lapse,” U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told a news conference in Seoul, using the formal name for South Korea.
Thomas-Greenfield didn’t provide specific details about U.S. discussions with allies and other partners, including whether an alternative monitoring regime would more likely be established through the U.N. General Assembly or with an independent entity outside of the U.N.
Thomas-Greenfield met with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul on Monday and they discussed unspecified “next steps to ensure a continuation of independent and accurate reporting” of North Korea’s illicit weapons development activities, according to her office.
Thomas-Greenfield said it was clear that Russia and China, which abstained from voting on the U.N. resolution vetoed by Moscow, will continue to try to block international efforts to maintain monitoring of U.N. sanctions against North Korea. She criticized Russia for violating those sanctions with its alleged arms purchases from North Korea, and China for protecting the North from being held accountable.
Moscow and Beijing have thwarted U.S.-led efforts to tighten U.N. sanctions on North Korea over its ramped-up ballistic missile testing since 2022, underscoring a divide between permanent Security Council members that deepened over Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“I don’t expect that they will cooperate or agree with any efforts that we make to find another path, but that is not going to stop us from finding that path moving forward,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
Thomas-Greenfield also briefly addressed questions about tensions in the Middle East. When asked about the Palestinian Authority's request to have full U.N. membership, she said a U.N resolution in support of that request would not contribute to finding a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“President Biden has said categorically that we support a two-state solution for addressing the situation in the Middle East, where Palestinians will have a state of their own and Israel is secure in their state, and we are working on the ground to get to that place as quickly as possible,” she said.
“We do not see that doing a resolution in the Security Council will necessarily get us to a place where we can find a ... two-state solution moving forward," she added.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest point in years, as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has accelerated his weapons demonstrations and issued provocative threats of nuclear conflict against rivals.
The United States, South Korea and Japan have responded by expanding their combined military exercises and sharpening their nuclear deterrence strategies built around strategic U.S. assets.
In a telephone conversation on Wednesday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed to further strengthen three-way cooperation with Washington to counter North Korean threats and other regional challenges amid “deepening uncertainties in the international situation,” Yoon’s office said.
The Security Council imposed sanctions after North Korea’s first nuclear test explosion in 2006 and tightened them over the years in a total of 10 resolutions seeking — so far unsuccessfully — to cut funds and curb its nuclear and missile programs. The last sanctions resolution was adopted by the council in December 2017.
The Security Council established a committee to monitor sanctions, and the mandate for its panel of experts to investigate violations had been renewed for 14 years until last month.
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council before last month’s vote that Western nations are trying to “strangle” North Korea and that sanctions are losing their “relevance” in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the North.
In its most recent report circulated last month, the panel of experts said it is investigating 58 suspected North Korean cyberattacks between 2017 and 2023 valued at approximately $3 billion, with the money reportedly being used to help fund its weapons development.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield arrives to attend a press conference at the American Diplomacy House in Seoul Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (Jung Yeon-je/Pool Photo via AP)
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaks during a press conference at the American Diplomacy House in Seoul Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (Jung Yeon-je/Pool Photo via AP)
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaks during a press conference at the American Diplomacy House in Seoul Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (Jung Yeon-je/Pool Photo via AP)
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaks during a press conference at the American Diplomacy House in Seoul Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (Jung Yeon-je/Pool Photo via AP)
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaks during a press conference at the American Diplomacy House in Seoul Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (Jung Yeon-je/Pool Photo via AP)
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaks during a press conference at the American Diplomacy House in Seoul Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (Jung Yeon-je/Pool Photo via AP)
