Manufacturers are by far the largest consumers of electricity in the State of Texas. The rising cost of energy continues to play a pivotal role in capital investment location decisions across the nation and around the globe.

TAM Supports:

• The development of market-based energy sources that will provide Texas with reliable and competitively-priced energy.

• An appropriate sharing of transmission infrastructure costs between producers and consumers of electricity.

• Streamlining the environmental permit processes to allow for more timely expansion of cost-effective electricity and other energy supplies.

• Allowing market-based, cost-effective resources, including load response, to compete in electricity markets.

• Effective oversight over the rates and services of monopoly electric utilities, which may include generation, transmission and/or distribution.

• Requiring accurate consumer cost fiscal notes for all energy-related initiatives and proposals.

TAM Opposes:

• Favoring certain energy technologies over others through the use of mandates or subsidies.

• Mandated capacity markets that create unwarranted wealth transfers from electric consumers to generators.

• Allowing monopoly utilities to increase rates without comprehensive rate reviews and effective oversight.

• Taxes and fees on energy consumption.
• Increasing bureaucracy or regulatory burdens that will inhibit the efficient development of competitive energy sources.

TAM knows that being pro-business and pro-environment are not mutually exclusive policy objectives. Texas manufacturers have been working diligently over several decades to improve air quality in Texas and are leading innovators in technologies to protect and improve the environment. TAM supports environmental policies that are based on sound science and that protect the environment while allowing the economy to grow.

TAM Supports:

• Maintaining current, ongoing initiatives which have dramatically improved air quality in Texas and do not interfere with enforcement of existing, effective state and federal air quality standards.
• Encouraging continued industry investment in technologically and economically feasible emission reduction solutions through market-driven measures rather than mandates.
• Maintaining automobile fleet turnover programs such as Low-Income Repair Assistance Program (LIRAP) that promote cleaner automotive usage and dramatically reduce mobile emissions.
• Maintaining cost-effective programs like Texas Emissions Reduction Plan (TERP) that are critical to reduce air emissions.
• Making air quality attainment requirements feasible to avoid unrealistic plans that risk Texas transportation funding, halt road construction and accelerate manufacturing job loss and relocation.

TAM Supports:

• Promoting market-based solutions to meet the state’s water needs.
• Proportionally distributing any costs in developing regional water infrastructure among end users.
• Promoting water reuse incentives and sustainability initiatives developed in collaboration with innovative manufacturing partners to reduce the burden on proposed water infrastructure.

TAM Supports:

• Broad-based, comprehensive solutions to solid waste reduction.

Manufacturing is an important contributor to economic growth and tax receipts at all levels of government. Texas must maintain tax policies and economic development programs that support Texas manufacturers and make Texas more competitive in attracting new manufacturers, sustaining existing manufacturing and creating new jobs for Texans.

TAM Supports:

• Keeping Texas on the competitive cutting edge to attract manufacturers and grow jobs.
• Maintaining the Texas Economic Development Act agreements under Chapter 312 and 313 of the Tax Code and renewing the Texas Enterprise Fund.
• Maintaining the structural integrity of Texas’ margins tax while seeking legislative and administrative technical changes and/or clarifications to create greater clarity and fairness in the business tax.
• Fostering a competitive business tax environment that reflects broad-based, fairly distributed taxes at the state and local levels.
• Maintaining a tax incentive for research and development, capital investment and job creation.

TAM Opposes:

• Attempts to further distinguish tax rolls of residential and commercial entities, such as appraisal caps.
• Increases in local option sales taxes beyond the current cap.

The manufacturing sector depends on a reliable and efficient multi-modal transportation system in order to move goods.

TAM Supports:

• Promoting a market-driven, cost-effective transportation infrastructure that allows efficient and competitive transport through the seaports, land ports, roads, railroads and pipelines of Texas.
• Transportation policy that increases productivity, reduces logistics costs for U.S. manufacturers, reduces fuel consumption and emissions, and relieves congestion -- making Texas a more competitive, cleaner environment.
• Encouraging expeditious flow of goods, which improves the environment, promotes efficiency and benefits consumers through reduced costs.

Historically, the manufacturing sector has been a primary source for middle-class jobs, especially for workers without a college degree. Today's manufacturing is diversified and requires highly-skilled workers with education and training of all kinds, from welders to engineers. We need to counter the notion that all high-quality manufacturing jobs require a traditional four-year college degree.

TAM Supports:

• Fostering an effective, efficient and standards-based education system that meets the needs of the Texas manufacturing industry and its wide array of employment opportunities.
• Providing an incentive to public school districts, public and private universities, community colleges and technical schools to increase the number of graduates in critical fields such as engineering, math, science and career and technologies.
• Encouraging rigorous yet flexible high school graduation pathways that lead to post-secondary success; including accountable and relevant programs to meet diverse manufacturing workforce needs.
• Ensuring that the state public education system supports and rewards local school districts wishing to offer career and technology courses that help meet their local employment demands.
• Ensuring that career and technology courses offered by school districts contain applied math and/or science components and qualify for credit for math and/or science toward flexible degree plans.
• Ensuring that in-state universities recognize and honor junior college career and technology-based courses.

Texas Association of Manufacturers and its members are committed to sustaining economic growth and defending against attempts to rollback more than two decades of landmark civil justice reform.

TAM Supports:

• A fair and equitable civil justice system that promotes a sound business environment capable of attracting and retaining manufacturing jobs.