Anti-renewable bills die quietly in GOP-controlled Texas legislature
The bills had become the focus in an intra-Republican battle over the future of Texas energy, and of GOP energy policy writ large — as well as the role of the state in administering markets.
The fight in Texas echoed a similar fight in Washington, where red-state senators whose districts have benefited from billions in clean energy investment are now pushing back against a House budget that seeks to eliminate Biden-era tax credits that incentivized that spending.
In the Lone Star State, the fight has been an understated victory for the renewables industry.
Taken together, the package of bills sought to impose strict limitations on the state's nation-leading renewables program. They were backed by far-right advocacy groups but opposed by significant factions of the state's business lobby.
S.B. 819 would have strictly limited where wind and solar could be built. S.B. 388 would have required every new watt of wind or solar to be accompanied by a watt of new gas, despite the shortage of the gas turbines that would make that possible. And S.B. 715 would have required several gigawatts of existing wind and solar to purchase backup gas generation or pay a fine.
While all three bills passed the state Senate over the last month, leadership in the House declined to put them on a crucial calendar in time for them to receive a vote before the session ends on Monday.
Polling from a pro-renewables conservative group suggests that restrictions on renewables are broadly unpopular — and growing more so — even among most Texas Republicans.
But the bills, two of which are updates of legislation introduced in 2023, are a sign of future political headwinds facing the state's renewables industry — particularly as a wave of new projects in the Texas exurbs, whatever their broad popularity, creates local discontent that anti-renewables organizers are mobilizing around.
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