A continuing rift over taxpayer subsidies for renewable energy among House Republicans ignited during debate on a farm bill that includes a provision letting a biofuels company receive $50 million in tax credits. Critics called the provision “crony capitalism” that would cost state taxpayers up to $900,000 per job created.

The amendment to Senate Bill 770, the NC Farm Act of 2016, introduced by Rep. Chris Millis, R-Pender, failed on Wednesday during House floor debate by a 33-79 vote.

The amendment would have denied Biochemtex of Wilmington, and its partners, exemption from the state law that ended issuance of new renewable tax credits Jan. 1, 2017.

The farm act, which passed its initial vote by a 92-22 margin, extends the deadline to 2020 for Biochemtex to build a commercial-scale biofuels electric-generating plant in Sampson County that would require 45 square miles of giant reed growth to power it.

Millis said Biochemtex is in the process of receiving more than $8 million in federal, state, and local tax benefits to erect the biofuels plant, Carolina Cellulosic Biofuels, in Clinton.

“If this amendment does not pass, they’re going to receive another approximately $50 million in state tax credits, in addition to the federal tax credits that they’ll get, which I don’t even know how much that is,” Millis said. “But on just the money we know about, the 65 jobs that they’re saying they will create are going to cost the taxpayers $900,000 per job.”

Rep. Nelson Dollar, R-Wake, was among those supporting the carve-out for Biochemtex.

“This is a $200 million investment that they have been working on for years,” Dollar said. “Their bids have already been extended, and this is jobs … in rural North Carolina, so vote for jobs. Vote for $200 million in investment.”

Rep. Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan, spoke against the Millis amendment, noting jobs created by the project would pay $48,000 a year in an area where the average wage is about $31,000.

Companies want “business certainty, that the rules don’t change once they’ve made business decisions, and they’ve made plans, they’ve expended funds,” said Rep. John Szoka, R-Cumberland.

“I truly believe that there’s a good case for this company to receive this exception,” Szoka said. “They’ve been working on this for quite some time. At the time they started this they knew exactly what the rules were,” but encountered unavoidable roadblocks.

Rep. Charles Jeter, R-Mecklenburg, also pushed to kill the Millis amendment.

“I think that this is a unique situation for a company that had been planned well before the sunset provision was put in last year,” Jeter said. He called the project “an outlier,” and said House Finance Committee staff assured him no other companies had signed a letter of commitment with the Department of Commerce before Sept. 1, 2013, qualifying them for the tax credits.

He said Biochemtex was “a company that tried to do it by the rules, had some things that they couldn’t control” in meeting a Dec. 31, 2013 deadline to begin construction of its facility, or a Jan 1, 2017 deadline to have its facility in service.

Millis said he, too, believes in business certainty, but that should not include favoritism for one entity to line its pockets under a statute the General Assembly already voted to sunset.

“Why are we going to continue to ride the backs of our taxpayers and ratepayers to subsidize specific companies for something that actually does not lead to net job growth?” he asked.

“A lot of politicians will tell you about job growth. We heard a while ago ‘Vote for jobs, this is $200 million,’” Millis said. “But it does not lead to net job growth, and the reason being because we’re giving $50 million of taxpayers’ money that could be spent elsewhere” to improve the economy instead of subsidizing a more expensive and unreliable form of energy.

“I also like taxpayer certainty. We told our taxpayers we were going to sunset these credits that are targeted, and only benefit a few at the expense of the rest of the taxpayers in the state,” said Rep. Jeff Collins, R-Nash.

“We’re practicing crony capitalism,” he said. “I think it’s unconscionable for us to continue to change the rules on our taxpayers.”

Collins said he lives in a farm district, and some of his best supporters are farmers.

“I can almost never vote for a farm bill because of some other piece of junk that’s crammed into a farm bill that has nothing to do with farming, and this is the piece this year,” he said.

Rep. Marilyn Avila, R-Wake, pushed proponents of breaking the renewable tax credit sunset for their justification, and a timeline to determine when Biochemtex went off the rails in meeting state deadlines to receive the tax credits. None could do so.

Rep. Jimmy Dixon, R-Duplin, said Biochemtex was granted its first extension because it was unable to obtain financing, and some of the necessary permitting to get the financing arrangements was not completed.

Jeter said the owner of the company died, and company restructuring further delayed matters.

“We’re told to reach into our hearts and feel bad for a company that’s not going to get $50 million of taxpayer money because they’re not going to meet the January end date” cast in law to have a renewable facility completed, said Rep. Michael Speciale, R-Craven. “You guys are killing me,” he said, accusing backers of the exemption of disrespecting the taxpayers.

Reps. Kelly Hastings, R-Gaston, and Larry Pittman, R-Cabarrus, also spoke in favor of Millis’ amendment.