Texas Gov. Greg Abbott spoke at the Texas Electricity Policy Summit hosted by Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy April 9. The governor described the state’s economic outlook and said Texas is on track to become the seventh largest economy in the world next year.
“Quite literally billions of dollars and millions of jobs are represented here today. Thank you for making Texas an economic legend,” Abbot said. “If you go back to the time of Spindletop, Texas has literally powered the entire world. The United States is now producing more oil than any nation ever and that can only happen because of the role that Texas plays in producing oil. Texas is the fourth largest producer of oil – and that is because of the hard work and determination of (many in the) room today.”
“The secret sauce of what really makes Texans No. 1 economically is the approach that we take, and that is that we truly partner with our businesses, because of this simple mathematical formula: When our businesses in Texas succeed, Texas as a state succeeds,” Abbott continued.
The governor went on to explain that 95% of all businesses in the state of Texas are small businesses – and they employ more than half of all Texans.
“We work just as much with small businesses, as we do with the large businesses,” he said.
Texas has also ranked as the No. 1 state for exports for 2 decades, Abbot said. That includes twelve years as the No. 1 exporter of semiconductors and ten years for all tech across the board.
“It doesn't really matter what sector you're in,” he said. “Texas is at the forefront of an export bonanza. These exports are spurred in large part by our robust manufacturing sector and our growing oil and gas exports. To keep Texas number one for exports, this last session we provided $400 million for the Ship Channel Improvement Revolving Fund that is going to help deepen and widen the Houston Ship Channel to accommodate even larger ships. And that in turn will mean that Texas will just expand even more in the amount of exports.”
Abbott said that these businesses need affordable, reliable power to operate and that the Texas legislature has signed more than a dozen new laws to strengthen the grid. Bolstering the grid also helps the continually growing population, he said.
“Bottom line is: much more power is in the near future. And we work on adding it every single day."