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Gonzalez Predicts "New Billionaires" in the Valley. His Wealth-Sharing Math Doesn't Hold Up.

23 hours ago
10 min read

$21 billion.


That is the figure U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez used to explain what the federal government will collect each year from energy shipped out of the Port of Brownsville. He wants 3 percent of it returned to the community.


The bill he is selling is real. The $21 billion is not supported by the bill's text, by the port's own trade data, or by how the corporate income tax works.


Gonzalez, a McAllen Democrat who represents Texas' 34th Congressional District, made the claim during a roughly 40-minute appearance on "Brownsville at Large," a podcast hosted by Brownsville City Commissioner Tino Villarreal Jr. The city's website describes the show as the first city commission informative podcast. Filmed 10-28-26


The interview comes as Gonzalez faces Republican Eric Flores, Green Party candidate Eddie Espinoza and Libertarian Chris Royal on the Nov. 3 ballot. Nonpartisan forecasters rate the race a toss-up. Neither the race nor his opponents came up during the episode.


What did come up was money. Who will make it, who will keep it, and how much of it South Texas should get back.


Vicente Gonzalez and Tino Villarreal
Two individuals engage in a discussion on the podcast "Brownsville at Large" with host Tino Villarreal, as they delve into the complexities of Gonzalez's $21 billion energy bill.

"MANY NEW BILLIONAIRES"


Near the end of the interview, Villarreal asked Gonzalez what he hopes Brownsville and the Valley become in 20 years.


Gonzalez predicted a massive economic hub built on trade and energy. Then he went further.


"It's being done on the backs of our region and on the back of our workforce," Gonzalez said. "There's going to be many new billionaires made from the projects that we see coming in the Valley."


He said he wants some of that wealth to stay. "I want to see some of those hundreds of millions of dollars stay right here," he said.


Gonzalez did not name which projects or which people he meant.


Earlier in the episode, he staked out a position that is rare among Valley officials.


"I'm not too big on giving tax abatements," Gonzalez said. Companies sometimes need to be enticed, he said, "but I certainly wouldn't give them the farm." He added that many of the companies coming to the region "don't have anywhere else to go," and that local negotiators should weigh that.


Those two statements are the frame for everything below.


WHAT THE VALLEY HAS ALREADY GIVEN


Gonzalez is a federal official. He had no vote on any city, county or economic development corporation incentive deal described here. The 956 Report found no public statement from him opposing any of them and has asked his office whether he took a position.


What follows is the public record for the projects he named in the interview: the LNG terminals, Saronic and SpaceX.


Rio Grande LNG. In 2017, the Cameron County Commissioners Court voted 4-1 to grant NextDecade's Rio Grande LNG a 10-year abatement of county property taxes, according to the company's own announcement and reporting by the Brownsville Herald. The deal was widely reported as worth $373 million in forgone taxes. In return, the company agreed to pay the county $2.7 million a year in lieu of taxes and to fund up to $10 million in community projects. County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr. cast the lone no vote. NextDecade's current fact sheet puts total expected investment in the terminal's first five trains at more than $30 billion.


Texas LNG. In 2024, the commissioners court approved an abatement for Glenfarne's Texas LNG on another 4-1 vote. Texas Public Radio reported the company would avoid about $34 million in taxes over 10 years.


Annova LNG. The county granted Annova LNG a $10.5 million abatement. The company abandoned the project in 2021, according to Texas Public Radio.


Saronic. For the Port Alpha autonomous shipyard, Cameron County approved a $211 million tax break, according to KRGV. The Greater Brownsville Economic Development Corporation offered an additional $10 million. The state added an $80 million Texas Enterprise Fund grant and incentives through its JETI program, according to Area Development. Reported totals for the full package vary widely across outlets, and The 956 Report is using the figures confirmed by local outlets and state announcements. Saronic raised $1.75 billion in March at a $9.25 billion valuation.


SpaceX. When SpaceX chose Boca Chica in 2014, the state committed $2.3 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund and $13 million from the Spaceport Trust Fund. The Greater Brownsville Incentives Corp. committed $5 million. Cameron County granted a $1.8 million, 10-year property tax abatement. SpaceX later repaid about $81,000 of $400,000 in Enterprise Fund money after missing hiring targets, according to news reports at the time.


Added together, these reported figures exceed $700 million. That total mixes estimates of forgone taxes with cash grants and commitments, so it should be read as a measure of scale, not an audited sum.


Some money has flowed the other direction. In August, the Brownsville City Commission disannexed 444.45 acres for SpaceX. In exchange, SpaceX committed up to $220 million for water and wastewater projects, paid as milestones are met, according to the city. The offer was presented for approval the same day. Villarreal, the podcast's host, pressed SpaceX at that meeting on why it needed to move so fast.


Separately, TxDOT has a $192.4 million project in its 2027 plan to widen State Highway 4, the only road to Starbase.


One local body has consistently said no. Point Isabel ISD rejected abatement requests from Annova LNG in 2015, Rio Grande LNG in 2016 and Texas LNG in 2022. The City of Port Isabel's city manager argued during the Texas LNG debate that abatements simply shift the tax burden onto homeowners.


The backdrop to all of it: Cameron County's poverty rate was 24.8 percent in 2024, and its median household income was $52,601, according to Census data compiled by Data USA.


ANALYSIS: Gonzalez's own test, that companies with nowhere else to go should not get the farm, fits the LNG terminals most closely. They depend on the Brownsville Ship Channel's deepwater access and on pipelines from the Agua Dulce gas hub. Saronic, by contrast, publicly weighed other sites, including the San Francisco Bay Area, before choosing Brownsville.


Vicente Gonzalez Jr. United States Representative
Vicente Gonzalez Jr. United States Representative

THE BILL HE'S SELLING


Gonzalez's plan to keep wealth in the region is H.R. 10434, the Empower Energy Exporting Communities Act. He introduced it Sept. 16. It was referred to the House Ways and Means and Oversight committees.


His office announced it as a bipartisan bill with Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Houston-area Republican. Crenshaw lost his March 3 primary to state Rep. Steve Toth and will leave Congress in January. The introduced text published by the Government Publishing Office lists Gonzalez as sponsor.


The bill text is short. It creates an Oil and Gas Community Trust Fund. The fund receives an amount equal to 3 percent of the net federal corporate income tax collected from oil and gas companies. Counties, cities, parishes and Tribal communities within 50 miles of a major oil or gas export port can receive payments for infrastructure and public services. Each port region's share is capped at its share of national oil and gas exports.


Gonzalez's office says the bill creates no new tax. That is accurate. It redirects existing federal revenue.


His core argument, that communities hosting export terminals carry the costs while the tax revenue goes to Washington, is a legitimate policy position. The problem is the numbers he used to sell it.



FIVE NUMBERS THAT DON'T HOLD UP


1. "$3 of every tax dollar."


Gonzalez first described the bill as directing the federal government to "take $3 of every tax dollar" from energy exports and send it back. Later in the same answer, he correctly described it as $3 of every $100, or 3 percent. The bill says 3 percent.


2. "$300 billion" a year from Corpus Christi.


Gonzalez said the Port of Corpus Christi exports $300 billion of energy a year, or $2.5 billion every three days.


The Texas Comptroller reports the port's total exports in 2024 were $82.7 billion, with mineral fuels accounting for $80 billion. That works out to about $680 million every three days.


3. "A hundred billion dollars a year" taxed "at 21 percent."


Gonzalez said the federal government will probably tax $100 billion a year of Brownsville's energy exports at the 21 percent corporate rate. "So that's 21 billion dollars," he said. "We're asking them to give us 3 percent back."


There are two problems.


First, the corporate income tax applies to profit, not to the value of what a company ships. Multiplying export sales by 21 percent assumes every dollar of revenue is taxable profit. It never is.


Second, oil and gas companies pay well below 21 percent. The FACT Coalition, a tax transparency group, found that 11 major U.S. oil and gas companies earned $173 billion in U.S. pretax income from 2018 through 2024 and reported $24 billion in federal tax expense. The three largest U.S. producers expect an average federal rate of 6.1 percent on domestic income for 2025.


Third, Brownsville is nowhere near $100 billion. The Texas Comptroller reports the Port of Brownsville exported $12.1 billion in goods in 2024. Its top export was petroleum, at $4.5 billion. The port ships no LNG yet. NextDecade expects first LNG from Rio Grande LNG in the first half of 2027.


4. "$500 to $800 million" for Corpus Christi.


This is the number that matters most, because it is the one that tells communities what they would actually get.


ANALYSIS: The 956 Report estimated the fund's realistic size using public data and stated assumptions.


Total federal corporate income tax receipts were roughly $450 billion in fiscal 2025, after falling 15 percent, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget's review of Congressional Budget Office figures. Oil and gas companies pay a small slice of that. The 11 companies in the FACT Coalition study averaged about $3.4 billion a year in federal tax expense. Assuming, generously, that the whole industry pays between $5 billion and $20 billion a year, 3 percent of that produces a national fund of roughly $150 million to $600 million a year.


Corpus Christi's $80 billion in mineral fuel exports is about a quarter of the roughly $320 billion the United States exported in that category in 2024. Under the bill's cap, the Corpus Christi region would receive roughly $40 million to $150 million a year, split among every eligible community within 50 miles.


Gonzalez's $500 million to $800 million estimate for Corpus Christi alone is larger than the entire national fund is likely to be.


The Brownsville region's share today, based on its $4.5 billion in petroleum exports, would be roughly $2 million to $8 million a year. If Rio Grande LNG and Texas LNG reach full planned capacity, The 956 Report estimates the port's energy exports could reach $18 billion to $20 billion a year, assuming LNG cargo prices of $8 to $10 per million British thermal units. That would lift the region's share to perhaps $8 million to $30 million a year.


Gonzalez's own on-air math, 3 percent of $21 billion, implies about $630 million a year.


These are order-of-magnitude estimates, not a formal score.


5. "25 percent of the state's natural gas."


Gonzalez said the plans he has seen would send 25 percent of the state's natural gas out through the Port of Brownsville.


Texas produced an average of 34.5 billion cubic feet of marketed natural gas per day in 2025, according to the Texas Oil and Gas Association's analysis of federal data. The Rio Bravo pipeline being built to feed Rio Grande LNG is designed to carry 4.5 billion cubic feet per day. Adding Texas LNG's planned capacity puts Brownsville's full buildout near 5 billion cubic feet per day.


That is roughly 12 to 15 percent of Texas production. Reaching 25 percent would require more liquefaction trains than are currently under construction. NextDecade has said the site could eventually hold up to 10.



WHAT IT ADDS UP TO


ANALYSIS: Gonzalez is right that the Valley is absorbing enormous private investment. He is right that companies including Saronic are being valued in the billions. He is right that Cameron County remains one of the poorest counties in Texas. His instinct that some of that wealth should stay is shared by people across the political spectrum, including the Point Isabel school board.


But the one legislative tool he offered to make that happen would, by the numbers in its own text, return a small fraction of what he described. It would also leave out entirely the aerospace and shipbuilding companies most likely to produce the billionaires he warned about. The bill covers oil and gas companies only. SpaceX and Saronic would contribute nothing to it.


And the abatements already granted to the companies he named were approved by local governments in his district, with no public objection from him that The 956 Report could find.


Voters in the 34th District will decide on Nov. 3 how much weight to give his pitch. They should have the real numbers when they do.


Important info:

Gonzalez's statements come from the audio of his "Brownsville at Large" appearance. Trade figures come from the Texas Comptroller's 2024 port economic impact studies. Bill provisions come from the introduced text of H.R. 10434 published by the Government Publishing Office. Fund-size estimates are The 956 Report's own calculations using the public figures cited above and the stated assumptions. They are not official estimates. Incentive figures come from contemporaneous reporting and public announcements. Values labeled as forgone taxes are estimates made at the time the deals were approved.


SOURCES


Congressional Bill H.R. 10434, introduced text: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-119hr10434ih

Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, FY2025 receipts: https://www.crfb.org/blogs/cbo-estimates-2025-deficit-totaled-18-trillion

Rio Bravo pipeline capacity: https://offshore-energy.biz/?p=63677

NextDecade 2017 abatement announcement: https://boereport.com/?p=211149

Brownsville Herald, Rio Grande LNG abatement terms: https://myrgv.com/?p=33871

R&D World, SpaceX 2014 incentive package: https://www.rdworldonline.com/?p=30157

City of Brownsville, Project Quantum: https://www.brownsvilletx.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?aid=3423

City of Brownsville, Commissioner Villarreal bio: https://www.brownsvilletx.gov/2561/At-Large-A

Ballotpedia, TX-34 2026 general election: https://news.ballotpedia.org/?p=51349

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