Good morning –

Here is today's chilly Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Tuesday, February 16, 2021
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• Texas taxpayers have subsidized the “green” energy industry by more than $19 billion between 2006 and 2019... and all we have to show for it has been frozen wind turbines and massive power outages.
      
• We cannot blame the Democrats. Two Republican governors, two Republican lieutenant governors, and nearly twenty years of Republican-run legislatures have allowed that wasteful spending of your money.
     
• Millions of Texans – including yours truly – found themselves without power in sub-freezing temperatures the last few days brought on in part by the highly unreliable power provided by the “sustainable” energy subsidized through our taxes and electric bills. 
   
• NOTE: If the power only works when it is pretty outside, then it ain’t what you’d call “reliable.”

• Brandon Waltens reports half of the state’s wind turbines could not provide power, due to many of the turbines freezing over.
   
• Here’s how Texas lawmakers have been subsidizing the green energy business.
   
• Chapter 313 of the Texas Tax Code allows school districts to offer large tax breaks for 10 years to renewable energy and other businesses, including wind farms. Those “local” tax breaks come at no loss to the school districts. Instead, the state supplements the lost revenue to the districts from sales taxes and other state-collected taxes.

• Interestingly, this subsidy program has drawn criticism from both the Republican Party of Texas and the Democrat Party of Texas; their platforms specifically call for the abolition of Chapter 313 abatements.
   
• Yet the Texas House overwhelmingly voted in 2019 to extend the program for another 10 years, from 2022 to 2032.
     
• There is always a bipartisan commitment in the Texas House to ignore the citizenry, waste the taxpayers’ money, and subsidize corporate cronies connected to the Austin lobby. Even if it means voters being left (literally) out in the cold.
     
• Fortunately, that 2019 legislation was killed in the Texas Senate. Unfortunately, legislation to extend the corporate welfare program has once again been filed in both chambers.

• It will be up to Dallas voters to decide if they want non-citizens serving on the city’s redistricting commission, reports Robert Montoya. That commission is responsible for setting the city’s voting precincts.
   

• State Rep. James White (R–Hillister), who is on the Texas House Redistricting Committee, was asked if he supports local governments appointing non-citizens to their redistricting committees. “Absolutely not and this notion is just plain crazy,” he told Texas Scorecard. “First, this is not constitutionally or statutorily sound. It devalues citizenship and is a slap in the face of Texas citizens.”

• In case you missed it... The City of Goldsmith – located about 20 miles from Odessa – has become the 19th city in the nation to pass an enforceable ordinance outlawing abortion within the city limits. Learn more from Mark Lee Dickson.

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