Central Texas News

A group of central Texas residents rallied together to oppose a tax break for a large solar project in their area – and they succeeded.

Concerned about environmental, economic and lifestyle issues linked to the Big Elm Solar project, the citizens presented their case to the Troy Independent School District Board of Education. On June 21, the board voted 6-1 to not extend a 313 tax abatement to Big Elm Solar, a shared effort of High Road Clean Energy in Austin and Apex Clean Energy, a Virginia company.

Big Elm Solar has leased 3,000 acres in the region and planned to place 18-foot-tall solar panels on around 1,400 acres. In 2020, the Bell County Commissioners Court had approved a 312 tax abatement for the project after a contentious public meeting.

The solar project’s request for a $135 million tax break came in the wake of the Texas Legislature voting to end the Chapter 313 tax policy, launched in 2001 and extended three times. It is now scheduled to sunset on Dec. 31, 2022, although an effort to renew the program was introduced during the current legislative special session.

Farmer Robert Fleming and Dr. Jim Killian, a Houston neurologist raised in Bell County, played major roles in leading opposition to the Troy ISD tax break. Fleming told Central Texas News that he was involved for 16 months.

Fleming said he and other large landowners were asked to lease land for the project and had three meetings with Big Elm Solar representatives. But he said the more he learned, the more “red flags popped up.”

Fleming, a corn and wheat farmer with a cow-calf operation, owns farms and ranches in four counties. His family has been in the area since 1878 and has a deep connection to it, he said.

“I kinda consider our family stewards of the land,” Fleming said. “I’ve always been involved in the community.”

Chapter 313 mandates a project create at least 25 jobs in urban school districts and 10 in rural districts. But Big Elm Solar representatives requested that clause be waived. It said while construction would create more than 200 jobs, once the project becomes operational in the spring of 2022, only two or three full-time employees will be required.

From an economic development standpoint, Chapter 313 tax abatements and other similar forms of corporate tax incentives and special deals have a questionable track record when it comes to creating economic growth. University of Texas research in 2017 found that the vast majority of tax abatement beneficiaries (85 to 95%) would have relocated with or without the special tax break.

Last year, Big Elm Solar officials told Bell County officials that the project would produce $195 million in economic activity. That convinced the commissioners to grant the Chapter 312 request by a 5-0 vote, despite being told the amount of taxes collected on the 3,000 leased acres would decline from $11.8 million to $3.6 million.

Fleming said dozens of local residents attended the meeting to express their opposition to the solar project. However, commissioners court, after tabling the discussion once to seek more information, then holding a town hall meeting, approved the tax break.

“They had their minds made up, they were going to do it, regardless,” he said.

Opponents then turned their attention full-time to the school district.

“The school district is a representation of a small area of the county, more community-oriented,” Fleming said.

He said he first contacted the school district in January 2020 and district officials seemed to have no clue what was going on, in his opinion, despite informing them about the proposed solar project and its impact on the area.

“We just kind of banded together and worked with the school district for 16 months,” Fleming said. “And it wasn’t easy.”

He said opponents attended multiple meetings, even only allowed to speak for five minutes. They provided packets of information, called, emailed, texted and contacted them via Facebook.

“I think we gained their trust,” Fleming said. “That’s kinda how we went about it.”

He said opponents had to explain that they were not opposed to solar power but had real issues with this level of massive development.

“My biggest concern was environmentally,” Fleming said. “Water quality, water runoff, the ecosystem damaged, trees removed in our area. You know, we get like 35 inches, we can get up to 50 or 60 inches a year rainfall. And so, our erosion factor is tremendous in our area. So that was downstream water quality.

“You know, drinking water was another issue we had,” he said. “You know, water quality downstreams that are in our watersheds, Brazos River, Little River and on down the Gulf. That was my biggest concern.”

He said the material used to manufacture the solar panels posed another question.

“No one will tell us,” Fleming said. “I still don’t know, you don’t know, no one knows. They’re gonna put millions of them son of a guns on 3,000 acres on prime farmland? That was my concern.”

He also saw the people who would be hurt by the loss of prime farmland for use in solar power generation.

“There’s so many people tied to this agricultural area,” Fleming said. “Not necessarily the landowner, but all the in-users, the fertilizer dealers, the crop insurance people, the pesticide people, the herbicide people, the grain marketing people, the trucking people, the feed store people, on and on and on. So, they lose their part of the opportunity as well.”

He also was irritated by how the solar project obtained leases.

The companies come in and then make really good friends with the landowners that they're leasing to,” he said. “So, they come in and they divide our communities. They separate us. And very secretively.”

Fleming said neighbors that his family has known for generations made deals with Big Elm Solar without informing the people who live nearby.

“I knew the leasing was out there, but I didn’t think anyone was stupid enough to do it,” he said. “Because it's all about the dollar bill, you know. We're still friends, don't get me wrong.

“And I understand the money talks. I understand people don't have heirs to leave land to, understand that if you want retirement, don't have an income, you don't understand the agriculture economy is not the best in the world. I understand the whole situation,” Fleming said. “But I want to leave the land better for the next generation and I firmly believe that solar panels are not the way to go. No way.”

It’s also a questionable investment for governments.

A recent evaluation by The Energy Alliance shows that from 2006-2021, taxpayer subsidies directed to intermittent wind and solar generators in Texas totaled over $24 billion, with local and state subsidies making up nearly half.

In conjunction with an increase in taxpayer subsidies, Life Powered analysis of U.S. Energy Information Agency data confirms that over the past decade the installed capacity of intermittent wind and solar generation has skyrocketed by 193% at the expense of more reliable capacity, which declined by 4.4%.

According to The Energy Alliance, 79.3% of all new generation since 2018 has been from wind and solar with only 19.1% coming from natural gas generation that can be reliably dispatched. The lack of diversity that has resulted from this over-reliance on renewables “has come at a great cost to Texans” in the form of a less reliable grid more prone to interruptions and blackouts, according to The Energy Alliance.

The negative impacts of continued and aggressive subsidies for less reliable wind and solar generation is becoming clearer. The Wall Street Journal writes that federal, state, and local subsidies coupled with mandates have hyper-charged an “over-development of renewables,” resulting in more reliable and dispatchable natural gas plants operating at lower levels and less able to quickly adjust to periods of surging demand.

Additionally, a 2018 study details how lucrative subsidies to the wind and solar industries have significantly distorted the Texas energy market by causing artificially low or even negative wholesale prices that drive out more reliable sources of energy, in turn decreasing the reliability of the energy grid.

This national and statewide issue has resulted in local battles, like the one that erupted in Bell County the last two years. People with little experience or interest in government operations have been forced to accept dramatic local changes or get up to speed quickly on how to oppose it.

Fleming is vice president of the Bell County Farm Bureau but has never sought an elective position and has no plans to do so.

“Oh, no, I'm not into politics,” he said. “It was my concern for the community and the environment and what was going to happen."

But in this case, Fleming decided he had to get involved, and he’s glad he did. It’s a battle that will continue across the state, he said, but in Bell County, local residents decided to hold their ground and fight for their rights and their land.

“It’s the most precious piece of Texas there is as far as production agriculture,” Fleming said. “You know, it's vanishing rapidly because of urbanization, now because of renewable energy leasing.”

He said the risk remains and the vast majority of such projects are approved. Less than 3% of local opponents are successful in stopping these kind of developments.

But in Bell County, they did.