Trump cancels the clean energy grant to enlarge the Syracuse factory: “It kills us”

A New York State Center factory that manufactures electrical heat pump parts said it could reduce its expansion projects after the administration of President Donald Trump canceled a $ 5 million grant to help finance the project.

The expansion of 25 million dollars of Bitzer Scroll Inc. in Dewitt would add a new assembly chain for the company’s high yield compressors and initially create 20 new jobs.

But the Ministry of Energy announced Thursday that it ended subsidies totaling nearly $ 8 billion for 223 clean energy projects in 16 states.

The ministry has provided a list to Syracuse.com | The post-standard which included Bitzer Scroll among the subsidies completed.

Before the list of the list, the director of the White House budget, Russell Vought, praised the imminent reductions in clean energy projects – all in the states that supported Kamala Harris in the presidential election last year.

“Nearly $ 8 billion in funding from the new green scam to feed the left climate agenda were canceled,” wrote Vought on X.

John Allcott, vice-president of North American operations of Bitzer Scroll, said that he had received any advice from the Ministry of Energy after being contacted Thursday by a journalist from Syracuse.com.

He said that the canceled subsidy was the last challenge for Bitzer while trying to enlarge an American factory intended to benefit from the growing demand for energy -efficient heat pumps.

“This affects us considerably,” said AllCott about the loss of financing. “It would simply be much more difficult to finance expansion. We would probably end up abandoning certain elements of the project, and that would hurt everyone.”

Bitzer Scroll was already faced with an increase in cost of $ 10 million this year after Trump added customs duties to Chinese manufacturing engines used in his products, said Allott.

These engines cost around $ 108 each, he said. But now the prices have added $ 118 per unit in additional costs, more than the engine itself.

“The fact that Trump brings on jobs to America is completely reversed for us,” said Allott. “It kills us.”

He said that employment in the factory located in a former John Deere warehouse had increased from 152 to 113 people in recent months, in a context of increased costs and uncertain economic conditions.

“It’s not an easy period right now,” said AllCott. “If I was currently a member of the Bitzer Board of Directors, I might say that it makes no sense to manufacture in America.”

Bitzer Scroll was presented as a brilliant example of the resurgence of manufacturing in the Syracuse region after Carrier Corp. closed its immense air conditioning factories and that other large companies like New Process Gear have closed their factories.

Bitzer SE, the German company which is the parent company of Bitzer Scroll, decided to open a factory in Syracuse in 2009, precisely because the region had lost many manufacturing companies, leaving behind a skilled workforce.

Carrier closed two manufacturing factories in Dewitt in 2004, leaving 1,200 people unemployed in the manufacture of air conditioners and related parts. Many jobs have been subcontracted in Asia.

Bitzer, one of the main manufacturers of compressors in Europe, opened its factory in an abandoned factory in General Motors after a global search for a site to manufacture its Scroll compressors.

Bitzer, founded in 1934, employs 4,500 people worldwide on 75 sites, including 21 manufacturing factories.

Before starting to make in Dewitt, Bitzer opened a design center on Collamer Road in 2006. It was the first time that the company has designed compressors outside of Germany.

Three years after opening its manufacturing plant in the former GM inland Fisher guide factory in Salina, Bitzer has moved to larger premises to a mile from there, in former warehouse John Deere in Dewitt.

The local factory continued to grow as the demand for heat pumps increased. A federal law of 2022 provided for discounts and tax credits to encourage the use of heat pumps in houses and other buildings, thus reducing their energy costs.

In addition, New York State will require electric heat pumps or other electric heating systems in each new house built in the state from next year.

Bitzer compressors are a key element of the heat pumps used in commercial and industrial buildings and residential buildings.

But the company’s expansion projects in the center of New York State could now be compromised due to the end of the grant and the increase in costs related to prices.

The main competitor of Bitzer Scroll, the Danish company Danfoss, opened a new factory last year in Mexico where it benefits from lower labor costs.

A single other competitor from Bitzer Scroll, the world manufacturer Copeland, still manufactures compressors in the United States.

Allott said he was planning to ask the company’s board of directors in Germany if he wanted to find additional funding to compensate for the loss of the federal subsidy and maintain his expansion projects on the right track.

“I just don’t know if they will want to invest this kind of money with what they currently see,” he said, referring to the Trump administration policies. “It’s so counterproductive. You have to think about it because you harm American companies.”

The Bitzer Scroll subsidy was one of the fifty -fifty energy projects specific to New York canceled by the Trump administration.

The Ministry of Energy said it made this decision after an exam “determined that these projects did not adequately meet the country’s energy needs, were not economically viable and would not provide a positive return on taxpayer money”.

Bitzer Scroll and other grant beneficiaries will have 30 days to appeal the termination decision, said the department.

Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, leader of the senatorial minority, said that Trump’s decision to cancel subsidies was part of an “endless campaign for chaos and revenge” against the Democratic majority states.

He suggested that the time chosen was linked to the closure of the federal government which began on October 1 after the Democrats in the Congress refused to adopt a financing bill.

The Democrats were pressure to restore Trump’s cuts in Medicaid and to renew tax credits for the premiums of the Act Act in any new spending plan.

“It goes beyond targeting blue states,” said Schumer in a statement. “This brings a demolition ball to the life of workers ‘families, putting the unemployed building workers and increasing families’ electricity bills for political purposes.”

Trump, in an interview broadcast Thursday evening on One America News on Thursday evening, warned that his administration could suppress projects favored by Democrats in the midst of their dispute over the government’s closure.

“I have the right to delete things that should never have been approved in the first place and I will probably do it,” said Trump. “We could delete the projects they wanted, their favorite projects, and they would be definitively deleted.”

Schumer said that the canceled projects represent billions of dollars in private and tax revenue that will be lost for local communities.

“Instead of doing politics with the closure, President Trump should work on bipartite solutions to reduce costs for Americans and create jobs,” said Schumer.

Schumer prompted to create a federal subsidy program for clean energy projects through the law on the reduction of inflation of 2022.

The subsidy for the expansion of Bitzer Scroll comes from the Heat Pump Defense Act program of the Ministry of Energy, designed to stimulate the American production of heat pumps in energy.