Gov Andy Beshear fights federal cuts that could cost Kentucky more than 700 jobs

Governor Andy Beshear is pushing back against proposed federal funding cuts that he says would devastate Kentucky's manufacturing revival and cost the state hundreds of good-paying jobs.

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In a letter to President Donald Trump this week, Beshear urged the administration to reconsider $24 billion in cuts to the U.S. Department of Energy- cuts that he said would slash $537 million already awarded to five Kentucky projects.

"The projects at risk of losing this funding are helping reshore American manufacturing and jobs from China, and these cuts jeopardize that progress for our commonwealth and our country," Beshear wrote in the letter.

The governor's concerns aren't abstract. These are real facilities in real Kentucky towns, many of them in rural communities that have been hungry for economic opportunity.

Take Maysville, for instance. Mitsubishi Electric was awarded $50 million to transform an old automotive parts plant into a heat pump compressor factory that would employ 300 Kentuckians. Right now, China makes nearly 95% of these compressors- the kind of dependency that both parties have said they want to end. At full capacity, the Maysville plant would crank out over a million compressors a year.

The biggest project at risk is in Hopkinsville, where Ascend Elements was counting on more than $316 million for an electric vehicle battery recycling facility. That project alone would create 400 jobs and help America produce more of the critical materials needed for EV batteries, materials we currently import because we simply don't make enough domestically.

Other threatened projects, according to Beshear, include $75 million for Diageo's operations in Shelbyville, $72 million for a research project at PPL's natural gas facility in Louisville, and nearly $24 million for energy research at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.

For Beshear, the irony is hard to miss: these are exactly the kind of manufacturing jobs and China-independence initiatives that Washington has been promising for years. Now, with shovels ready to hit the ground, the funding could disappear.

"These cuts will only set back economic development and job opportunities in Kentucky and hurt our country's international competitiveness and progress on reshoring domestic manufacturing," the governor said.

Whether the administration will heed Beshear's plea remains to be seen. But for the communities of Maysville, Hopkinsville, and others across Kentucky, the stakes couldn't be higher.

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