Rick Weddle (Site Selectors Guild): Welcome to Site Selection Matters, where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, president of the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild or economic development partners and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession. In this episode, we have as our guest, Chris Lloyd, senior vice president and director of infrastructure and economic development with McGuireWoods Consulting, a leader in the practice of location advisory services and economic development. Today, Chris will talk with us about the American Rescue Plan, where specifically Chris will discuss just what the plan means for the economic development community going forward. Join me as we welcome Chris Lloyd to Site Selection Matters.

Chris, as we come out of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re starting to see some of the real impacts of the various federal stimulus plans adopted to help restart the economy. Now we even have a new one, the recently approved American Rescue Plan. To get us started if you will, take a minute or two, help our listeners understand what all is really included in the American Rescue Plan.

Chris Lloyd (McGuireWoods Consulting): Sure, Rick. And again, thanks for hosting us and inviting me to be a part of this today. You know, as you outlined, Rick, you know, this is not the first and nor will it probably be the last federal stimulus plan to come out of Congress. And I know we’re going to talk later about the potential American jobs plan, the infrastructure plan that the Biden administration has floated, but you know what we’ve got here in the American Rescue Plan, which was passed, you know, within the first month of the new administration is $1.9 trillion. Yes, that’s trillion with a T dollars that’s going to flow from Washington to the states and through various federal agencies for a variety of purposes.

What makes this program a little bit different from the CARES Act or some of the earlier stimulus plans adopted by Congress is that while there’s certainly an overlay and a theme that runs through this money that links it to the COVID pandemic and recovery from it, there’s a little bit more flexibility with regards to how this money is used by the states and the federal agencies in that, a lot of those earlier packages were exclusively tied to reimbursing expenses incurred by impacted small businesses, by local and state governments related to PPE expenses, related to overtime for personnel for running vaccination clinics, for running COVID testing.

And while there’s certainly money in the new America’s rescue plan for those expenses as well, there are a number of programs here that really do have an economic development nexus that I think that, you know, many of the listeners of this podcast will be interested in and thinking about how we can use that money for an economic development purpose. You know, starting at the high level of the $1.9 trillion, you first and foremost, you’ve got $219 billion is going directly to states, $130 million goes directly to localities for allocation. There’s $10 billion allocated in a Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund, which is for each state gets at least $100 million for capital projects that are related to work or education or health monitoring related to COVID-19. You’ve got money set aside for travel assistance. You’ve got $4 billion going to USDA.

You’