I have been asked to share my thoughts on tax abatements and their use in economic development for wind and solar projects. Quite frankly, I do not like abatements and have made that point clear to the developers I have had experience with. Even so, I joined the majority of Commissioners Court to execute four agreements.

One was a 100% abatement with a 10-year PILOT, one a true 6-year abatement loaded heavy on the front, a solar agreement that timed out and never developed and Young Wind which, became operational in late 2022; a 10-year 100% abatement with PILOT payments. Many people might not realize that when there is an abatement with a PILOT, it will not appear on the tax roll until the abatement period ends, and at that point, it's included at its depreciated value.

​

These developments did not bring lasting economic impact to the county as in businesses, jobs, housing, or maintenance and service. Taxes did not decrease much, if any at all. There may have been some temporary effects during the construction phase, including impacts related to sales tax and material transportation by trucking companies, which concluded within twelve to fourteen months or less. Just a little bigger pot for the CCC to spend out of.

​

Early on it was wind only in West Texas not long after the projects migrated into North Central Texas. The developers would often pit county against county with the abatement pitch, meaning you give an abatement, or we move to the county that will. If an agreement was not reached in their favor they may take the project elsewhere. So don't let the numbers you hear presented or read fool you into the idea that an abatement agreement is more valuable to a taxing entity than the project coming directly onto the tax roll. If that were true, no developer or investor would be requesting an abatement for their project.

​

Later, the solar farms came along with the same format. Now some wind and solar projects are not even requesting abatement, while some are suggesting they will not request an abatement from the ISD's. However, what they fail to mention is that the Texas legislature allowed chapter 313 to expire (chapter 313 is the authority for an ISD to use PILOT payments) beginning in 2022. Replacing it with chapter 403 which prohibits an ISD from granting a PILOT agreement. Even though most procedures are the same the state is now in charge of financial matters.

​

What draws developers’ interest most is access to high-voltage transmission lines and large blocks of land with few owners. Young County has both large-acreage owners with the transmission lines through their properties making it a private property deal. They do not need or deserve a subsidy from the county taxpayer. We have parts of two wind farms in Young County and all of one wind farm, which is one of the largest single footprint farm in Texas and the entire USA. I do not advocate having any solar farms in Young County because they take away all of the productive agricultural uses.

​

According to American Farmland Trust, “between 2001 and 2016, in the USA 11 million acres of farmland and ranch land were converted to urban and highly developed land use (4.1 million acres) or low-density residential land use (nearly 7 million acres)”. That does not consider wind and solar farms which is significant. Only urban sprawl.

​

According to Texas A&M AgriLife Magazine, from 1997 to 2022, Texas saw approximately 3.7 million acres of working lands converted to non-agricultural uses. The last five years alone accounted for the loss of 1.8 million acres.

While grazing lands make up the largest portion of working lands in the state, they have steadily decreased since 1997, losing 6.7 million acres to other land uses over the 25 years.

​

Of the Young County projects described above and those now pending, I would not be likely to support abatements to these types of projects moving forward. However, I would not take abatements completely out of the picture for other types of industries and other locations. My wish would be that the legislature would allow the tax abatement section of the code for counties to expire altogether.