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Texas Cities Best in Job Creation, Economic Strength (Despite Generators "Talking Down" Texas Business Climate; Capacity Market States Again Absent from Rankings)
Despite two years of dire warnings about blackouts and capacity owners "talking down" Texas' business climate, Texas cities continue to catch the attention of national business and economic publications for their economic strength and job creation, taking top marks in recent rankings by Forbes and The Business Journals, Gov. Rick Perry's office noted yesterday.
"When it comes to the critical areas of economic success and job creation, it's no secret why Texas continues to set a national example," Gov. Perry said. "It's simple: we keep taxes low, maintain fair and predictable regulations, and protect our citizens from frivolous lawsuits. These free market principles have created an environment that allows hard-working Texans to prosper, unburdened by an intrusive government that taxes success and limits our freedom" (emphasis added).
According to the Forbes study released last month, the top four U.S. metro areas for middle class job creation since 2007 are in Texas. Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos ranked first, adding 17,000 middle class jobs, followed by Houston-Sugarland-Baytown, San Antonio-New Braunfels and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington.
Link to Forbes rankings
In addition, The Business Journals' October 2013 ranking of U.S. cities by economic strength named three Texas cities in the top five. Austin topped the list, with Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston taking the second and fourth spots.
Link to The Business Journals' rankings
No city in a state relying on a capacity market for resource adequacy made the Forbes top 10 list of middle class job creators (Indianapolis within PJM was ranked 10th, but relies on a vertically integrated monopoly utility rather than the capacity market for resource adequacy).
No city in a state relying on a centralized capacity market for resource adequacy made the Top 10 of The Business Journals' October 2013 ranking of U.S. cities by economic strength. San Jose, in a state which relies on a bilateral capacity obligation placed on LSEs, was 5th (note also the vast majority of California load is served under integrated resource planning/cost-based regulation)
How much more evidence is needed to illustrate that capacity markets are job killers, not job creators?
If you need more convincing, reference a plethora (click here) of past independent rankings of business climates, and economic vitality, all of which have one common theme: the stark absence of states with capacity markets
Businesses, which likely spend millions on analyzing the most beneficial locations on every conceivable criteria, continue to move to Texas, despite warnings that the current market design won't keep the lights on -- indicating that businesses do not share that unsupported view. And since we've had two years of capacity owners throwing the Texas business climate under the bus, continued relocations to Texas cannot be attributed to ignorance, or that relocating companies didn't know about the alleged looming capacity shortages.
According to Perry's office, Climbtech recently announced plans to relocate its Asia-based manufacturing operations to Austin, and IBM unveiled a new, Austin-based software studio that has already created 100 new jobs, with plans to create 1,000 jobs over the next five years. Earlier this month, Gov. Perry announced an investment in Oracle through the Texas Enterprise Fund, creating 200 jobs in Austin. In September, Motorola Mobility successfully launched its new smartphone manufacturing plant in Fort Worth, creating 2,500 new jobs in the state.
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November 21, 2013
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Copyright 2010-13 EnergyChoiceMatters.com
Reporting by Paul Ring • ring@energychoicematters.com
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