2025 SESSION

SENATE SUBSTITUTE

24107365D

SENATE BILL NO. 302

AMENDMENT IN THE NATURE OF A SUBSTITUTE

(Proposed by the Senate Committee on General Laws and Technology

on February 7, 2024)

(Patron Prior to Substitute—Senator DeSteph)

A BILL to direct the Manufacturing Development Commission to create a proposed budget and business plan for the Virginia First Manufacturing Incentive Program.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. § 1. A. That the Manufacturing Development Commission (the Commission) shall develop a budget and business plan to create the Virginia First Manufacturing Incentive Program (the Program). The business plan shall identify existing manufacturers in the Commonwealth that are potential candidates for reshoring, near-shoring, or in-shoring manufacturing jobs and capital investments. The Commission shall consult with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership Authority (the Authority), Genedge Alliance, and the Virginia Manufacturers Association on the development of the business plan.

B. The Program should facilitate the growth of existing manufacturing industries in the Commonwealth by (i) creating a reshoring, nearshoring, and in-shoring program focused on expanding and recruiting manufacturers that manufacture products for critical infrastructure sector industries and (ii) creating a discretionary incentive fund or amending existing discretionary incentive funds administered by the Authority to provide trade adjustment assistance to any existing manufacturer located in a workforce region in the Commonwealth with less than five percent unemployment that has lost employees to a competing manufacturer that has received any state incentive funds from the Commonwealth. As used in this subsection, "trade adjustment assistance" means cash awards up to $10,000 per manufacturer to assist with recruitment, pre-employment screening, industry credential training, apprenticeship-related instruction, or customized training for any qualified open job. As used in this subsection, "qualified open job" means any job at an existing manufacturer that has been vacated by an employee and relocated to a manufacturer in the Commonwealth that has received incentive funding from the Program.

2. That the Manufacturing Development Commission shall present the budget and business plan for the Virginia Manufacturing Incentive Program to the Secretary of Commerce and Trade and the Chairmen of the House Committee on General Laws and the Senate Committee on General Laws and Technology by October 1, 2024.