By Sharon Franklin.
Cami Ferrell, reported in Environmental Health Network (EHN) in mid December 2024, Top polluters are benefiting the most from tax breaks https://www.ehn.org/tax-breaks-for-industry-cost-houston-area-1-billion-2670440965.html. Ferrell reported on what is happening in Harris County, which includes Houston, Texas, and how it is projected that Harris County is expected to lose nearly $1 billion in revenue over the lifespan of current tax breaks. Unfortunately, these tax breaks are given to many corporations, including top polluters, as noted by the environmental advocacy group, Texas Campaign for the Environment, who commissioned a study from Autocase https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K-BFkw4OI4hyITlMBFkBzakwG4ae0jVD/view . Autocase is a economic analytics company that analyzes industrial companies for three types of tax code agreements given by cities or school districts.
Who Is Benefitting From These Tax Breaks? ExxonMobil, received the largest tax break nearly $198.2 million, or nearly 20% of all tax revenue that is being lost in Harris County. Their Baytown, Texas facility, is the 3rd largest petrochemical complex in the United States, whose size equals approximately 2,576 American football fields. It also accounts for several violations or noncompliance of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). https://echo.epa.gov/detailed-facility-report?fid=110000463178. Both have histories of environmental noncompliance. Yet, as noted in Autocase’s report, the fines from these violations total $2.46 million (less than) < 1.25% of the money they save in tax breaks.
2nd & 3rd are who are benefitting from these taxes breaks in Harris County are Lyondell Chemical, approximately 13% and Chevron Phillips approximately 8%. https://texreg.sos.state.tx.us/public/readtac%24ext.TacPage?sl=T&app=9&p_dir=N&p_rloc=173087&p_tloc=14946&p_ploc=1&pg=2&p_tac=&ti=30&pt=&ch=101&rl=201. This is why Jen Hadyia Executive Director of Air Alliance, said “top polluters are being met with top economic incentives.” “The study …shows that these same industries are preventing economic benefits from returning to the communities they are polluting”.
What Is The Economic Impact On Harris County? The Autocase study revealed active tax break agreements with 83 companies in Harris County. https://www.dailyclimate.org/tax-breaks-for-industry-cost-houston-area-1-billion-2670441502.html . For corporations these tax breaks represent long term property valuations, and in return companies promise economic growth, and job opportunities. Also, according to the study, the largest source of tax breaks are because of Texas’s Chapter 313 agreements, https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/development/prop-tax/ch313/agreement-docs.php which limit property value increases for 10 years on businesses that promises economic development and investments in the local school districts. The study further revealed that, on average, each job created by the industries receiving tax breaks cost $1.2 million in lost revenue. The highest tax break per job was Occidental Petroleum, receiving $38.7 million per job. Stefan Dindayal of Autocase who conducted the study said “We can compare how many dollars are being lost for each service,” “And this is kind of a neat way to get the community to actually understand what they’re losing. They’re not just losing a dollar amount. What they’re losing is dollar amounts in these potential services that could have benefited the city and the community at large.
How Are These Corporate Tax Breaks Affecting Residents of Harris County, Texas? Houston resident, Erandi Treviño, of The Raíces Collaborative stated “We can see here that home taxes are extremely high and truly, really onerous “And when you have…billion dollar entities that are getting these tax breaks, clearly something here is off.””
At the time of the article’s publishing, Lyondell Chemical and Chevron Phillips have not responded to Environment Health Network’s (EHN) requests for comment. Exxon Mobil responded, but did not comment.