Tuesday handed Congress to the other party and started a clock. The administration has two years to leave something behind, with a House and Senate that owe it nothing. Laws get repealed. Rules get rewritten. But a yard with steel in the ground stays, and its payroll stays, whoever takes the oath in 2029. A president cannot pass a tax credit alone. He can deregulate to decide where the first shovel goes. Next year, every state legislature meets, most in January. The states that use those sessions well will be first in line.
The president’s April 2025 order directed the Commerce Department to plan Maritime Prosperity Zones, modeled on Opportunity Zones and spread across the map, the Great Lakes included. A House bill from Reps. Mike Kelly (R-PA) of Pennsylvania and Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) of Texas would write up to 100 of them into the tax code. It is pending in the House Ways and Means Committee, no zone has been designated, and, in January, it must be refiled in a House run by Democrats. The bill is Republican. The idea is not. Eight Great Lakes senators, four from each party, wrote the president asking that the zones be defined by activity rather than geography, so their yards qualify. Kelly’s district includes Erie.
