Nixon signs Boeing 777X bill

by Tim Logan, St. Louis Post Dispatch
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In a signing ceremony stacked with symbolism, Gov. Jay Nixon put his name on Tuesday on the package of incentives state lawmakers passed last week to help lure Boeing Co.’s 777X plant to St. Louis County.

Nixon signed the law, which creates up to $150 million a yearin new tax credits if Boeing puts a final assembly plant here, before a crowd of lawmakers and labor and business leaders at the McDonnell Planetarium at the St. Louis Science Center.

Seated before a St. Louis-built Mercury spacecraft, Nixon put his pen to the bill that he says could reshape St. Louis’ aerospace industry the way McDonnell’s Space Race-era successes did.

“Today, another big aerospace project is in play,” he said. “Its outcome will have a powerful and lasting outcome on this region.”

Nixon was talking about Boeing’s new 777X commercial airliner, which the aerospace giant says it will move out of Seattle after labor unions there shot down a tough new contract to build it.

Outside of Washington state, no state official in the country has been more aggressive in pursuit of the plant than Nixon, who called Missouri lawmakers into a special session last week to set up new tax breaks that could top $1.7 billion over next 23 years for the plant, which Boeing documents say could generate 8,500 jobs. St. Louis County officials doubled that offer Monday night, approving up to $1.8 billion in local tax breaks of their own.

While the price tag in subsidies is big, Nixon said, the decision to pursue this plant was easy.

“We could compete to bring 777X and thousands of jobs to Missouri. Or we could sit this one out,” he said. “To me, the choice was clear.”

The competition is fierce. States from California to South Carolina are reported to be readying packages for Boeing, and industry analysts say sticking in Seattle is still a most-likely scenario. But St. Louis and Missouri officials who have talked with Boeing executives say they like their chances of winning at least some work on the plane, and they won’t get any if they don’t try.

State proposals were due Tuesday afternoon, making the late-morning signing ceremony a sort of symbolic end to a very busy two weeks for the dozens of state and local economic development officials who have been putting together St. Louis’ package. But there was still a little work to be done. When the ceremony was through, Missouri Department of Economic Development Director Mike Downing walked out the door of the Planetarium with a giant binder under his arm.

“We’ve got to finish this up,” he said.