The Texas House on Thursday voted 118-22 to create new economic incentives to attract large companies to come to the state or expand current projects in Texas after lawmakers allowed a similar 20-year-old program to expire in December.
tweaked the legislation to address concerns that the new program did not go far enough to protect the quality of the jobs the companies would be required to create in order to get the property tax discounts.They pushed through changes that raised the wages of those jobs, required the employers to offer and contribute to health benefits for those jobs and stiffened the penalties for noncompliance.
The bill was criticized by Democrats and some rural Republicans for specifically excluding renewable energy projects. Hunter told House members that the main reason renewable energy sources like wind and solar were sliced out of the program’s eligibility criteria was to create a program that would “get various groups on board.”“I have no problem with the renewables industry, and I’ll work with them, but in this bill, they are not included,” Hunter said. “It is not a negative message.
“If we can create dependable, reliable, dispatchable energy from whatever source it might be, that’s what we need to be doing,” Smithee said. “All of the above. When we need energy here in this state, we can’t discriminate against any source.”argued that without language in the bill that specifies renewables can’t be included through the batteries loophole, the state is essentially continuing to invest in energy sources that opponents within the Republican party say are wholly unreliable.
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