A bill to slightly limit foreign adversaries’ ownership of Indiana land revealed a state agency is currently planning 11 business deals with Chinese companies worth an estimated $14.4 billion. The Indiana Economic Development Corporation, however, wouldn’t release to The Federalist the names or locations of these foreign-owned ventures.
In fact, said Republican state Sen. Jean Leising in an interview with The Federalist Friday morning, state lawmakers tell her the IEDC even uses “code names” for its foreign business deals to preserve secrecy until they’re completed. The IEDC will not even release basic information about any of these deals to the state lawmakers who give the IEDC billions in tax dollars.
Indiana’s House and Senate are due to vote on House Bill 1183 later today, hours before this year’s legislative session gavels to a close.
The scant details the governor’s office did share with legislative leaders in an attempt to derail the bill only make the deals look more dangerous, Leising said. Those include that at least four of the 11 Chinese companies dealing with the IEDC are attempting to locate strategically in former military facilities, near aquifers, and next to a nationally critical rail intersection.
Lawmakers revealed the identity of only one of these corporations, Fufeng Group, while attempting to add exceptions that would allow Fufeng to build an alleged grain processing plant 9.7 miles from a National Guard base. H.B. 1183 would keep businesses and citizens from six “adversarial countries” — which include Communist China, Communist Cuba,
