May 12, 2021 – Houston Chronicle
Huge corporations are saving $10 billion on Texas taxes, and you're paying for it
By: Mike Morris
…And these (gas processing) plants, said Rusty Braziel, president of the Houston energy analytics firm RBN Energy, are typically no more than 25 miles from the cluster of wells producing the gas in need of processing. Just nine of the 35 gas plants that got Chapter 313 deals are that close to neighboring states….
… In theory, more gas liquids could flow to Louisiana, New Mexico or Kansas, Braziel said. But, though Mont Belvieu’s salt caverns put it on the map, the town is the world’s gas liquids hub for another reason: 70 percent of these compounds are exported or sold to petrochemical plants, and both industries are clustered along the Gulf Coast.
There are docks, refineries and petrochemical plants in Louisiana, too, Braziel said — but not enough. The notion that three dozen Texas fractionators would have gone to Louisiana in the absence of tax breaks, he said, is folly.
“Could some? Yes. Could all of them? No,” he said. “The majority are going to land in Texas.”…
Read the full article here: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/unfair-burden-part-1-texas-tax-corporations-covid-16164744.php
