Firewood, sawmill firms earn state grants
Nine more Tennessee businesses, including a pair in Bledsoe County, will have the opportunity to grow through a total of $767,000 in grants provided by the Agriculture Enterprise Fund.
Back Country Harvesters received a grant for a new business for firewood and bulk shavings while Blankenship Sawmill is upgrading a sawmill.
A product of the Governor’s Rural Task Force, the AEF is an incentive program that supports job creation and economic development by facilitating agricultural development in Tennessee. It provides assistance to new and expanding Tennessee agriculture and food businesses, particularly in rural counties.
Dollywood tax breaks give $500 to workers
Nearly 1,200 employees of Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., are getting a tax-induced bonus based upon cuts in the 2018 tax rate for the amusement park near the Great Smoky Mountains.
Dollywood hosts who worked at least 1,000 hours last year and are still employed with the amusement park are each getting $500 checks today, thanks to the recent federal tax cuts.
“Dollywood strives to be a great place to work for great people,” Dollywood President Craig Ross said Tuesday in a statement announcing the first-of-the-kind employee bonuses. “We’re grateful for the memories our Hosts create for our Guests by working hard every day, and this bonus is just one way we plan to share our appreciation throughout the year.”
The Dollywood employees are among more than 5 million Americans who have received bonus payments or wage boosts from savings their employers got when the federal corporate tax rate was cut from 35 percent to 21 percent this year under the tax changes adoped by Congress in late 2017, according to the White House.
Better oversight sought for devices
U.S. health officials on Tuesday proposed steps to improve the government’s system for overseeing medical devices, which has been criticized for years for failing to catch problems with risky implants and medical instruments.
Among other measures, the Food and Drug Administration will consider requiring more training for doctors who implant certain high-risk devices. But that step, like others floated by the agency, might require new guidelines or regulations. Other proposals may require additional money from Congress.
The FDA has repeatedly been forced to issue safety alerts about unexpected problems with devices that only appeared years after they were approved for use in patients.
“We want to have better tools for detecting issues that occur post-approval,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Tuesday. “But we also want to have better policies to quickly intervene and better inform patients and providers if we see adverse events happening.”
Groups criticize U.S. Steel penalty
A proposed federal settlement inadequately punishes U.S. Steel for chemical spills into Lake Michigan, according to Chicago officials and a surfing organization.
The deal calls for U.S. Steel to pay nearly $900,000 in fines and penalties for spills at the Midwest Plant in Portage, Ind., test for hexavalent chromium daily, create a preventative maintenance program and upgrade pollution monitoring.
The Chicago Law Department and the nonprofit Surfrider Foundation said in a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that they’ll oppose the deal in federal court if the EPA and the Department of Justice don’t make significant changes.
The groups want environmental improvement projects for communities near the Portage plant, an independent study of potential long-term damage caused by the spills and an automated early warning system to detect future spills.