By: Micki Vandeloo, President, Lakeview Consulting
Since the pandemic, I have frequently gotten inquiries like this:
“I saw on the news (or in the press, or on the internet) that the federal government is putting money toward reshoring manufacturing. We plan to bring work back to the United States, so how can we get some of this money?”
Or:
“We are bringing manufacturing back to the United States, we have to believe the government will give us money to reshore.”
The fact is that, even though some states used CARES Act or ARPA funds to create grant programs to incentive supply chain localization and reshoring, the federal government has taken a different approach with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) money – providing funding to target industries to invest in US facility expansion, retooling and construction. So far, target industries have included:
- Semiconductors and semiconductor component parts
- Electric vehicle batteries
- Electric vehicle manufacturing and conversion
- Heat pump manufacturing
- Silicon chip manufacturing
- Battery recycling
- Carbon utilization, containment and storage technologies
- Industrial decarbonization
In addition, according to the Department of Energy, Requests for Information (RFIs) and Notice of Intent to Publish FOA (NOI) have been issued for additional grants for clean energy technologies, domestic near net shape manufacturing, conversion of manufacturing facilities, and scaling the US solar manufacturing workforce. RFIs and NOIs are the precursor of release of funding opportunities, and are a great way to see what is forecasted to be released.
Not only have many programs been released to strengthen American manufacturing, but new opportunities continue to come out on a daily basis. In fact, a recent Executive Order directing American manufacturing of technologies developed through American funding is likely to result in funding to support these efforts, as manufacturers will need to retool and increase capacity to produce products. And, the federal government is finally recognizing that, in order to attract new manufacturing and facilitate investment in manufacturing facilities, they must help provide the capital to supplement at least a part of the extensive costs that are involved in these activities.
The reasoning behind the government’s approach, in my humble opinion, is two-fold:
- It is bad politics to use the word reshoring in the title of a grant. After all, the US has strong ties with many foreign entities and the publicity that would result from issuing “reshoring” grants may result in worsening relations with countries that manufacture our goods.
- The federal government identified key industries that were critical to avoiding future supply chain disruptions, including silicon chip and semiconductor manufacturing, and programs have been released according to the highest priorities on this list. There have been announcements of very large semiconductor manufacturing plant construction and resulting job creation in many states as the result of these federal grants. Additionally, the BIL and the IRA both prioritized clean energy initiatives, which resulted in a slew of grants to address reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, including electric vehicle and battery manufacturing.
So, how can you find out about new federal and state opportunities to fund your industry? Here are a few tips:
- Subscribe to industry publications. One of our clients in the electronic recycling sector found out about a federal grant opportunity through their industry trade association, who not only published a synopsis of the funding opportunity in their newsletter, they also held a series of webinars explaining the funding opportunity for members.
- Subscribe to Grants.gov alerts and their newsletter. This is very simple to do and you can customize alerts. To set up an alert, you first need to register for an applicant account, which requires that you have a gov account as well. Once you have an account, you can subscribe to all new opportunities that are released. To customize an alert, create a search in grants.gov, and save the search. Then, you will be able to view resulting funding opportunities that fit your criteria at any time. For example, I saved a search for grants and cooperative agreements for For-Profit entities for specific agencies. Here are the results:
- Sign up for your state Economic Development newsletters. States also have grants to support manufacturing readiness and investment. To stay on top of these grants, go to your state’s Economic Development department website and sign up for their newsletters or listserv to be alerted when new funding opportunities are released.
- Sign up for the Manufacturing Grant Database from Lakeview Consulting. This database is updated monthly and contains current information on all federal and state grants for manufacturers, including reshoring grants. Sign up today, and get $5 off the monthly subscription by using the promo code LAKE22 when you sign up.
I hope this information helps clear up confusion over reshoring grants. If you still have questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. I am happy to help!
