NO MORE SECRET DEALS— A coalition of advocacy groups is launching a campaign today to persuade states to ban secret negotiations over economic development deals — a practice Amazon (along with other major employers, like General Motors and electric vehicle companies Canoo and Rivian) has been known to employ. Bills barring the use of nondisclosure agreements in those negotiations are already pending in states such as New York, Michigan, Illinois.

The campaign’s backers include the American Economic Liberties Project along with nonprofits Good Jobs First, Michigan’s Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Reinvent Albany.

— All very hush-hush: States and localities spend between $45 billion and $90 billion on economic development deals each year, often in the form of tax breaks for companies that agree to build facilities or locate new jobs in a particular location. Chicago-area communities in Illinois, for example, agreed to $741 million in subsidies for Amazon to build warehouses there.

But companies have begun asking lawmakers to sign nondisclosure agreements about such deals, allowing them to negotiate the terms behind closed doors with little public input, said Pat Garofalo, the director of state and local policy at AELP.

“[These are] public resources, taxpayer dollars, and the people voted into office signing agreements saying they can’t divulge what they are going to do with that money,” said Garofalo, who helped build a database of deals shielded by NDAs. “Corporations are trying to cut other stakeholders out of discussion until it’s too late.”