Four years after allowing companies to test driverless cars on Arizona streets, Gov. Doug Ducey is moving to make the state the center of testing for the next generation of autonomous automobiles.

The Seattle-based web giant announced plans to build a second headquarters last week. The company said it would prefer a metropolitan area with more than one million people, a stable business environment and a strong talent pool. Amazon also said it expects incentives from wherever it chooses to build the headquarters.

Matthew Earl Jones brings with him lots of industry resources and a passion for making Arizona the top film industry destination, despite its lack of tax credits, and continuing to expand the local infrastructure needed to support film and digital media.

Whether Gov. Doug Ducey can get the Republican votes he needs to pass his proposed overhaul of the Arizona Commerce Authority seems beyond question. Getting the Democratic votes may be far trickier.

Ducey proposes economic development overhaul

A proposed overhaul of the Arizona Commerce Authority by Gov. Doug Ducey will help set the stage for future reductions in regulations and taxes that are deemed to put Arizona at an economic disadvantage.

The first recipient of grant money from the Arizona Commerce Authority’s “deal-closing fund” fell short of its promises in a big way, and the agency has gone to court to recover the money it awarded to the company.

Just four years after the Arizona Commerce Authority replaced the old Department of Commerce with the goal of revolutionizing the state’s economic development efforts, the quasi-private agency faces another overhaul.

State auditors are faulting the Arizona Commerce Authority for inflating the numbers it uses in claiming how many jobs it helped bring to the state.

When the world’s largest producer of colostrum-based products needed more well-trained employees to expand its Phoenix operations, it looked to the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. And through its local business-concentrated Phoenix Forward initiative, it delivered.