Whether to repeal TransAlta’s tax exemptions as a means to help close the state’s $2.8 billion budget gap will be a topic of debate between the House and the Senate as the 60-day legislative session comes to its scheduled close on Thursday.
Language that would repeal the Canadian energy company’s tax breaks was one of the many changes the House made to the Senate’s tax bill before approving their $680 million tax package.
Whether to continue the state’s tax exemptions has been a much debated topic in the final week of this year’s legislative session. The Senate took up the issue in their Ways and Means Committee on Friday and again on the floor on Saturday before deciding to close the exemptions that would give the state an additional $10 million through 2011.
State House Minority Leader and TransAlta Communications and Community Relations Director Richard DeBolt, R-Chehalis, said the outcome of this latest battle to shut down tax breaks to the state’s sole coal-fired plant will resonate beyond TransAlta.
“If they do those kind of things, you’re going to find it harder for businesses to come to Washington,” said DeBolt, about the state “reneging” on their deal after the plant spent more than $200 million to lower the plant’s pollutant output.
Some legislatures are also concerned of what eliminating the tax exemptions could foreshadow.
“With a 14 percent unemployment, we can ill afford to lose 200 more jobs,” said Rep. Gary Alexander, R-Olympia, adding TransAlta would most likely look to other alternatives if the tax breaks are taken away.
Marcy McAuley, a spokesperson for TransAlta, said her company remaining in Centralia is not dependent upon the state keeping the tax exemptions in place.
The tax bill, SB 6143, will now go back and forth between the House and Senate in the next 48-hours if the session is to end on schedule.
