KOLKHORST’S SB 147 PASSES SENATE
A bill authored by State Senator Lois Kolkhorst that curtails the purchase of some Texas land to certain foreign entities has passed the Senate.
On a 19-12 vote on Wednesday, Senate Bill 147 heads to the House for consideration. The bill restricts the purchase of farmland, oil and gas rights, timber and rare earth materials by entities that are classified as hostile by the Director of U.S. National Intelligence for three consecutive reports. Those nations currently include China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.
The bill was amended from the initial version, which looked to ban citizens and businesses associated with those countries from purchasing land, after being criticized by some lawmakers and members of the public who claimed it was discriminatory. The bill was clarified so that its prohibitions do not apply to lawful permanent residents, as well as U.S. citizens and dual citizens. It also specifies the types of land that are restricted and how it does not apply to the leasing of land, only purchases.
The legislation follows the unanimous passage of Senate Bill 2116 during the 2021 session, preventing nations deemed as hostile from doing critical infrastructure business in Texas. The bill was filed after a China-based firm purchased around 140,000 acres for a wind farm near Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio.
During Senate debate, Kolkhorst said relinquishing control of the state’s agriculture, energy deposits and rare earth materials to the countries listed in the National Threat Assessment “would cause grave consequences for our state and national security.”
In the United States, there are 22 states that have prohibitions on foreign land purchases, with another five requiring reporting.
Thank God, there are some proactive thinking legislative persons here at State level who are not mired in the same morass and swamp our representation in D.C. is ! Kudos. Let’s get this done before the end of this legislative session, PLEASE !!
Toothless. Should’ve forced all of those countries’ citizens of any race or ethnicity to buy instead of leasing, pay a deposit to the State, and disclose ownership under penalty of forfeiture of their property and deposit to the State in the event of their own transgression or a declaration of war. That way they’d have skin in the game, an incentive against bad behavior, plenty of oversight, and a funding mechanism for successful law enforcement action.
Might even be worth it to split the pot with whistleblowers to see who comes forward. Might be able to expose a lot of anonymously controlled Delaware corps and Panamanian shell companies operating here in Texas that way. (And some political donors, I’m guessing, to see how readily the Senate bowed to them because of “discrimination”.)