Federal News: 

The whole high-price-of-fuel thing?  Yeah, it’s not going to get any better: In a recent NY Times opinion article, a political economics professor at Cambridge put the world on notice that the 1970s fuel crises were chump change compared to what’s coming at us.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, already stressed energy markets were pushed over the edge.  Prior to Putin’s aggression in that country, fuel supplies had already been struggling to meet demand; prices notably surged during the past year.  (This despite the U.S. shale boom during the previous decade; but the rate of growth of shale gas has been falling since 2020.)  And the new OPEC Plus cartel of oil producers now exercises a decidedly anti-U.S. position.

State News:

Ohio General Assembly to fast-track townships & smaller cities’ ARPA funds: In anticipation of the 2nd tranche of COVID relief to arrive from the U.S. Treasury this month or next, the G.A. has scheduled HB 377 (described below) for full action before the summer recess to distribute those funds to Ohio’s townships and smaller cities (so-called nonentitlement units of local government, or NEUs, under ARPA).

Federal News:

Real discussions afoot as to changing the global supply chain model of past several decades:  Appearing on Thursday, April 21 at the World Bank and IMF, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the audience the time has come to rejigger global supply chains that are “not secure.”  With the more aggressive stance taken by adversarial countries such as Russia and its ally China, Secretary Yellen stated that global supply chains had proved to be unstable, and that supply chains should be reshaped around “trusted partners,” even if it meant higher product costs.

State News:

JobsOhio embarks on a $50MM national ad campaign to tout the State:  Making ad buys in Austin, New York, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, L.A. and San Francisco, JobsOhio has launched its large-scale advertising campaign to alert these markets to Ohio’s value proposition: it’s a great place to live and operate a business, and it’s a lot cheaper than those markets.

In one example, playing on the city’s tagline, a JobsOhio billboard in Austin announces “Keep Austin Weird…. Like very high cost of living weird.”  (This Texas city has experienced rapid growth, but its housing costs have soared; median home prices in Columbus, which often competes in the same tier, are 62% lower.)

Federal News: 

Ohio’s manufacturing future looks towards chips and semiconductors in the greater Columbus region; with federal help, more investment may be on the way.     

On February 4, 2022 the United States House of Representatives passed the America COMPETES Act of 2022 by a vote of 222 to 210.  Among other measures, the 2,900-page bill allocates nearly $52 billion in grants to subsidize semiconductor manufacturing and another $300 billion for other, related research and development purposes.