Hatch says he wouldn’t have made $110 million deal with Egyptian fertilizer firm

CEDAR RAPIDS - A regional economic development authority, as proposed by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jack Hatch, would have killed the state's $110 million deal with an Egyptian fertilizer company that an economist called the 'dumbest economic decision made in Iowa.”

'Let me tell you, it probably wouldn't happen,” he told The Gazette Editorial Board Wednesday. 'In our model … in all likelihood, you wouldn't have that bad of a deal. A deal like that just wouldn't happen because you have so many layers of discussion.”

Hatch, a Des Moines state senator, has been critical of Gov. Terry Branstad's decision to commit state incentives to Orascom Construction in exchange for the creation of 165 permanent jobs. According to Branstad, 1,900 people are working on the project and 400 more will be hired to complete construction. The number of permanent jobs is expected to be 240 and grow once the plant opens, he said.

Hatch has proposed replacing Branstad's centralized Economic Development Authority in Des Moines with four regional economic development authorities. Each would receive about $50 million a year to stimulate business development and job creation.

The appeal is that decision-making would be closer to the local level where the development would take place.

For example, Hatch said, if Davenport and Iowa City made a convincing case, the southeast Iowa regional economic development authority could invest in a passenger rail connection to Chicago. Branstad has not been willing to commit state funding to that proposal.

Under his proposal, Hatch said, he could say 'no” to a project, 'but if I did that, it would be well-known and I would most likely have a fight I'm not interested in having.”

In the case of Orascom, which received $133 million in property tax exemptions from the Lee County Board in addition to the state incentives, Hatch stopped short of saying he would have vetoed the project if it came to him.

'I don't think that deal would happen,” he said. 'If they came forward with a deal like that, before it even got to my ears there would be complaints from a variety of stakeholders.

'Those crazy ideas and those bad ideas, those unworkable ideas and those special interest ideas would all be stopped very early on in the process” Hatch said.

That would be too bad for southeast Iowa because the Iowa Fertilizer Plant 'has brought unmatched economic growth in southeast Iowa, contributing to the whopping 35 percent reduction in unemployment since 2011,” according to Branstad spokesman Tommy Schultz.

'Jack Hatch promotes a plan he admits would kill jobs, whereas Gov. Branstad's approach has netted more than $9 billion in record-setting projects across Iowa.”