Levesque: Defense bill leaves incentive program ‘ineffective’
The 2014 Department of Defense budget cleared the U.S. Senate last week but did not include a provision Maine’s senators and Brunswick Landing’s top redevelopment official said would help companies grow at the former Navy base.
The Bangor Daily News reported a bill sponsored by U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King would have expanded the HUBZone program, which gives preferential consideration for government contracts to certain businesses located at closed military bases. To qualify under current law, a company at Brunswick Landing would need to have at least 35% of its workers live on the former base.
The HUBZone Expansion Act of 2013 would have expanded that area to all of Brunswick, doing the same for similar HUBZones around the country. The bill was proposed as an amendment to the defense spending bill but fell as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called for a limit on amendments to appease Republicans and pass the bill.
Heather Blease, who started SaviLinx and previously founded EnvisioNet, told Mainebiz in April that she planned to use the HUBZone program to help her company win government contracts. Steve Levesque, executive director of the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority, told the paper that the program is “completely ineffective” and the failure to amend it will affect companies at the former Brunswick base until those zones are expanded.
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