New York businesses get shafted as Albany showers $5.5B, endless aid on Idahos Micron

Money is a powerful incentive.It helps explain why Micron Technology, the Idaho-based memory chip manufacturer, is looking to set up shop outside Syracuse — an area with no historical link to the company, or to semiconductor manufacturing.State officials, hoping to break Central New York out of its economic doldrums, promised Micron $5.5 billion in cash-like incentives in 2022.But on top of that, Albany offered the company a whole lot more to overcome obstacles and costs that other New York businesses routinely face.From now on every business owner in the state, looking at his or her own challenges, their tax bills, their regulatory burden, should be asking the question: How different would things be if my company was a politically favored project being announced by the governor? What favors would Albany do for me?What would Micron get?Call it “the Micron test.” The answers help identify the ways and extent to which New York makes it artificially difficult to do business — and outlines specific changes that could make doing business easier.For starters, Micron got a big head-start in getting through SEQR (pronounced “seeker”), New York’s onerous environmental review process.SEQR, on a good day, requires developers to pay for studies and jump through hoops to get permission for otherwise routine construction.But the process is frequently abused by project opponents, and developers often have to turn to the courts for help getting things unstuck.In a nutshell, SEQR scares many developers away from even proposing projects in New York, because there’s so much uncertainty about how long approvals will take — or if they’ll come at all.Micron looks for the most part to be avoiding that problem.Onondaga County’s economic development agency will be quarterbacking Micron’s SEQR process, and has already conducted — and paid for — detailed studies to make it easier to give the final sign-off on construction.

State economic development officials are ...