Bill Analysis
House Bill 1701 would amend Section 481.078 of the Government Code related to the Texas Enterprise Fund in order to reduce from 90 days to 30 days the delay after which an award of money appropriated from the Texas Enterprise fund is considered disapproved by the lieutenant governor or speaker of the house of representatives if the proposal to award the grant has not been approved by that officer.
The Lieutenant Governor or the Speaker of the House of Representatives would still be able to extend the review deadline applicable to that officer for an additional 14 days by submitting a written notice to that effect to the Governor before the expiration of the initial review period.
Vote Recommendation Notes
Under current law, the Governor can negotiate on behalf of the state to award, by grant, money appropriated from the Texas Enterprise Fund. Nevertheless, the Governor needs to receive prior approval from the Lieutenant Governor and the Speaker of the House of Representatives before any money can effectively be awarded.
House Bill 1701 would try and speed up this process by reducing the delay after which a proposal that has not been approved by the Lieutenant Governor and the Speaker of the House of Representatives is considered disapproved. While this may seem like more proposals could end up being disapproved, according the statement of intent of the bill, the goal is really to reduce the delay of approval in order to "compete" with other states that might approve awarding taxpayers money to private businesses more quickly than Texas. This change might end up putting additional pressure on the Lieutenant Governor and Speaker of the House to approve proposals, even when additional research and analysis may be necessary.
The role of government is not to encourage economic development by choosing winners and losers in awarding taxpayers money to private businesses. Not only does government lack the necessary signals that only a free market system can create to decide which business is more successful than another, taxpayer money should not be used for such purposes. This is precisely what the Texas Enterprise Fund is doing, however.
House Bill 1701 tries to speed up the process of approval of awards (an efficiency concern), but it also allows for more of them to be approved -- which, as discussed above, adds to the overall problem nationwide. As a consequence, we can neither support nor oppose House Bill 1701, and we remain neutral.
