(The Center Square) – Two renewable energy companies filed a brief with the Texas Supreme Court requesting the court require the Texas Comptroller’s Office to process all Chapter 313 applications it’s received to date. Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar says the move is a “frivolous” stunt.
Chapter 313 of the Texas Tax Code, which sunsets Dec. 31, allows school districts to offer large tax breaks for 10 years to renewable energy companies and other businesses. The school districts don’t directly “feel” the hefty financial losses because taxpayers subsidize the difference through sales and other state-collected taxes, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which supported the program’s end, says. Taxpayers actually pay far more over time, reducing the value of their earnings, TPPF argues.
Had the legislature extended the program, the Texas Legislative Budget Board estimated it would have cost another $9.6 billion in “local school district revenue losses” between 2023 and 2049.
In 2019, the Republican majority in the state House overwhelmingly voted to extend Chapter 313 for another 10 years, from 2022 to 2032. The measure failed in the Senate, but bills to fund the program resurfaced again in 2021 and are expected to again in 2023.
“The Texas Legislature purposely did not renew the Chapter 313 program during the last legislative session, and the program is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2022,” Hegar said in a statement. “As a result, my office has received an extraordinary number of applications from companies seeking to secure an incentive under the current program.”
With the end of year deadline approaching, he said his office has “had the difficult task of managing a workload that has more than tripled in the last six months.”
Despite the extraordinary workload, his office took measures “to responsibly allocate the necessary resources to comply with the law,” Hegar said, noting his office certified more than 300 Chapter 313 projects this year alone.
“Despite receiving billions of dollars in property tax abatements over the life of the program and potentially billions more in approved incentives just this year, these companies and their attorneys are asking Texas taxpayers to shoulder even more despite the Legislature’s decision to discontinue the program.”
Stetson Renewables Holdings LLC and Ogallala Renewable Project LLC filed an 87-page petition with the court last week asking it to order Hegar’s office to expedite conducting and completing his reviews, extend the Dec. 31 deadline and hire third-party consultants, as needed, to complete the reviews.
The companies said the “Comptroller’s failure to perform his statutory obligations and issue Certificates is jeopardizing approximately $773,550,000 in proposed capital investments in Texas, $27,001,784 in projected incentives, and projected minimum tax and other payments of $29,676,6001 to the school districts.”
Hegar said that the legislature “could have provided express transition authority that would have allowed us to continue reviewing and approving applications after the first of the year so long as the applications were filed before the program’s expiration date” but it intentionally did not do so.
He also said the petition was “a frivolous attempt to get the Texas Supreme Court to force my office to put even more resources toward the program in the final two weeks of its existence,” adding that his office “has fully complied with the law and will vigorously defend our position.”
Texas taxpayers have subsidized the wind industry to the tune of more than $19 billion between 2006 and 2019, The Center Square previously reported. Despite this, more than half of the wind turbines and their generators froze during Winter Storm Uri in 2021, contributing to power outages throughout Texas for more than a week.
Bethany Blankley is a reporter with The Center Square.
Originally published by The Center Square. Republished with permission.
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