The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have posted the position for director, Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program after the recent announcement that the previous director had left to become director of the CDFI Fund. The director “directs and controls the activities of the MEP,” according to the posting. Qualifications required include, “A broad knowledge of and demonstrated experience in manufacturing, manufacturing and industrial extension programs, and/or technology-based economic development.” The posting is open to May 8 with applicants encouraged not to wait until the last day to apply. Historically, MEP has partnered closely with the states and most SSTI members.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced its selections for $20 billion in grant awards under two competitions within the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). The three selections under the $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund and five selections under the $6 billion Clean Communities Investment Accelerator will, according to an announcement from the EPA, “create a national clean financing network for clean energy and climate solutions across sectors…. By financing tens of thousands of projects, this national clean financing network will mobilize private capital to reduce climate and air pollution….”

Sometime in late May, the U.S. will pass a deadline that could have major repercussions for new administration rules, depending on the outcome of the 2024 federal elections. In effect, rules finalized before late May would be overturned only by going through a new, full rulemaking process, which can be a lengthy process. Rules passed after that date, however, could be overturned relatively quickly by Congress if control of the branches changes.

The Commerce Department has suspended plans to announce a funding opportunity for the construction, modernization, or expansion of commercial semiconductor R&D facilities, according to an announcement the CHIPS Program Office made in their newsletter last week. The suspension does not impact the $11 billion the CHIPS Program Office still plans to spend on semiconductor R&D through separate R&D programs, nor does it affect the awards for incentive program funding opportunities already announced.

SSTI has updated data across four states, and added data for an additional two and Puerto Rico, in last week’s “SSBCI 2.0: An overview of state uses of funds” article. Select programs in Minnesota, Nevada, North Dakota and Oregon were reclassified by SSTI, and may differ from Treasury's “Capital Program Summaries”– which the original article was based on. A total of nine venture capital programs across these states were broadly classified as credit support programs by Treasury but reclassified as equity/venture capital programs by SSTI soon after the article was posted on March 28, 2024. Missouri, Vermont, and Puerto Rico were added by SSTI with information based on their respective press release documents. The analysis has been updated to reflect these changes, and will continue to be updated as more information becomes available.

Shrinking shares of job-creating, high-growth firms across the country, the topic of SSTI’s Useful Stats column in last week’s Digest, is not being experienced within all sectors of the economy, according to analysis of the Business Dynamics Statistics of High Growth Firms (BDS-HG) experimental dataset from the Census Bureau. From 1978-2021, the number of high-growth firms, measured by change in employment, has increased in five sectors, stayed the same in one, and decreased in the remaining 13 classifications of U.S. business and industrial activity. Slower-growth firms expanded their dominance of the economy, as all sectors experienced a decrease in the number of high-growth firms as a percentage of their total respective firms.

This article, written by Leonardo Vasquez and reproduced from the April 2024 issue of NBER Digest, is a summary of NBER Working Paper 31948, prepared by Luisa Gagliardi, Enrico Moretti, and Michael Seranfelli.