The Advanced Power Alliance submitted testimony to the Senate Business and Commerce Committee in opposition to the misguided proposals found in Texas Senate Bill 819.
The bill will establish a variety of new restrictions on private landowners seeking to host renewable energy projects SB 819 will place new environmental fees on private companies developing renewable energy projects despite the already stringent and mandatory decommissioning requirements found in state law (Utilities Code Chapters 301 and 302).
It will mandate setback requirements for renewable energy projects, despite the fact that the state has long taken pride in not requiring any meaningful setbacks for other types of energy projects.
Finally, in a big government flourish worthy of George Orwell’s 1984, SB 819 will create a mandatory permit for renewable energy projects, something not required for any other power generation project, and will empower the Texas Public Utility Commission to issue those permits without establishing in statute any objective criteria for their approval.
Here is APA’s written testimony. A video of the hearing on the bill can be viewed here, beginning at the 2 hour and 12 minute mark: https://senate.texas.gov/videoplayer.php?vid=21510&lang=en
Testimony on Senate Bill 819
Senate Business and Commerce Committee
March 27, 2025
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee.
I am Jeff Clark, President of the Advanced Power Alliance, speaking on behalf of APA’s members, including energy investors and developers, energy customers, energy workers, and energy suppliers. Our members build and operate all forms of power generation, including wind energy, solar power, natural gas, energy storage, hydrogen production, and other energy projects, here in Texas and around the country.
Senate Bill 819 is an anti-renewable energy bill. It’s not designed to address concerns about development in sensitive areas. Senate Bill 819 is designed to stop renewable energy development… everywhere in Texas. If it was intended to protect wildlife and to preserve habitat and sensitive areas, it would apply to all activity, including the most dangerous, most polluting, and most disruptive forms of development. Instead, it only applies to the most affordable, cleanest, and safest forms of electric power generation.
Proponents claim that decommissioning of wind and solar projects is a concern. It is not. Texas enacted rigorous, mandatory, non-waivable requirements, which we worked with you to codify in Texas Utilities Code chapters 301 and 302. SB 819’s proponents ignore these, calling for new fees and new regulations on the industry already bound by the most stringent decommissioning and removal obligations of any energy producer. Rather than attacking the industry that already has strict rules in place, why doesn’t SB 819 require every other power plant or energy producer to meet the same standards this legislature already set for wind and solar?
Landowners across Texas should pay attention as SB 819 attacks the private property rights that we Texans have always held sacred. Through government regulation, use limitations, and permitting, this bill takes real value from one person’s property instead allowing the state bureaucracy to decide what they are permitted to do on their land. State control, determining the “highest and best use” is not how Texas was meant to be.
While some may set aside their commitment to limited government in order to take a strike at renewable energy, make no mistake that the precedents established here will affect Texans and the state’s industries far into the future. This bill effectively puts in place statewide zoning for one industry, renewable energy. But the step toward state sanctioned property restrictions and permitting places every Texas industry atop the slippery slope of government intervention in their lives, liberty, and property. Every activity is fair game for governmental intrusion when private property rights are no longer revered. SB 819 should be rejected in order to protect the private property rights of the farmer or rancher who wants to diversify their income in wind or solar power to help them stay in agriculture during times of drought or low commodity prices.
School districts should fear SB 819. Many districts across our state are pursuing, or already counting on, tax revenue from wind and solar projects to fund their schools and service their debts. Many school districts have issued bonds relying on revenue they project their renewable energy projects will deliver. SB 819 places that revenue at risk. Wind and solar are often the largest contributors to the local tax bases in counties where they are built. Renewables fund the schools, fund the local government, help pay the debts. This bill closes this opportunity, and places future upgrades at risk. SB 819’s financial threat to rural school districts is real and it is highly unlikely that the landowner proponents of this bill are willing to voluntarily contribute to make up the tax revenue that their efforts will cost rural communities and schools.
Texas consumers who think their summer power bill is already too high should start saving because those bills will go higher if SB 819 passes. The inclusion of renewables in Texas’ electricity mix saves consumers nearly $1 billion every month. Consumers count on those savings, and affordable energy makes Texas attractive to other industries’ investments, especially in data processing and manufacturing. Nearly every wind and solar project built today in Texas is backed by a power purchase agreement with a corporate customer, including some of our state’s leading manufacturers. SB 819 places our corporate power customers at risk, especially those whose investments were attracted to Texas by the availability of cleaner, cheaper, stably priced electricity. SB 819 makes Texas less attractive for investment.
If this bill passes, you will hear from your landowners and constituents, from your schools, from power customers, and from your local chambers of commerce and economic developers. You are hearing from many of them today. If it passes, SB 819 will cause communities across our state to wake up to the discovery that future investments in rural communities are at risk. SB 819 also sends a troubling message to investors globally about Texas’ commitment to energy diversification and advancement, to a stable business climate, and to regulatory certainty.
Texans don’t support bigger government and over-regulation, especially when those regulations are targeted to single out one industry and to advantage its competitors. Policies that pit energy resources against each other are not only short-sighted, they threaten the growth and resilience of our state’s energy economy. Instead, we believe in harnessing the unique strengths of all our energy resources, working together to deliver reliability, affordability, and lower emissions. Senate Bill 819 runs counter to these values. It undermines cooperation, weakens our energy future, and should be decisively rejected.