Good morning, 

Here is today's Texas Minute.

–Brandon Waltens 

Monday, May 31, 2021
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But first, on this Memorial Day, the Texas Scorecard team would like to remember our service members who have given the ultimate sacrifice, and give our thanks to all who have served.

• One of Texas’ biggest corporate welfare schemes could be set to expire, after lawmakers declined to renew the program.
   
• But is the program actually dead? Today we look at the future of the 313 program.

• 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 the wind farms that infamously failed during this February's winter storm...)
   

• The 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.
   

• The program has drawn criticism from both the right and left; both the Republican Party of Texas and the Democrat Party of Texas call for the abolition of Chapter 313 abatements and corporate welfare in their party platforms.
   

• While lawmakers give away billions of dollars in tax breaks to outside companies, Texas taxpayers have been paying skyrocketing property tax bills with no meaningful relief.

• The 313 program is set to expire at the end of 2022. Earlier this month, members of the Texas House voted 112-29 to extend the Chapter 313 program for another two years.
   
• But when it came time for the House to approve separate legislation to approve the bill for 10 more years, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers worked to kill the massive expansion.
   
• Then the two year expansion bill was sent to the Senate. Right away, the proposal met resistance.
   
• When State Sen. Brian Birdwell, the Senate sponsor of the bill, presented it to the Texas Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Economic Development, he tried to change the expansion to three years.
   
• State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst expressed concerns with the entire program, saying “I think that this program is run amok and it’s time to start over with an absolute clean slate.”

• Though the bill ultimately passed out of the Senate committee, it was never brought up for a vote on the Senate floor, effectively killing it for this session.
   
• Lawmakers will be back for a special session in the Fall for redistricting, if not sooner. Time will tell if Gov. Greg Abbott will place 313 extensions on the call, even while other conservative priorities have died this session. 

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