Missouri's special legislative session seemed increasingly likely to collapse in failure Wednesday night as Republican House and Senate leaders remained unable to reconcile their differences on a business-incentive bill they had praised just weeks ago as a much-needed jolt to job creation.
After another round of failed negotiations, Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer declared the business incentive legislation has only "a very slim amount of hope" for passage and that lawmakers most likely will simply adjourn the special session on Friday.
"I'm not at all optimistic," said Mayer, R-Dexter. "I guess you could say it's on life support."
House Speaker Steven Tilley, R-Farmington, also declared Friday as the end date for the session - with or without passage of legislation.
Earlier Wednesday, House leaders declared they had struck a "sensible compromise" with Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon on a proposed overhaul of Missouri's business incentives and hoped to vote on it Friday. But that proclamation only further strained relationships with senators, who said they weren't involved in the talks or part of any supposed deal.
Sen. Kevin Engler, R-Farmington, called the House's plan a "take it or leave it approach" designed to "stick it" to the Senate when assigning blame for the potential demise of the special session, which began three weeks ago.
Nixon called lawmakers into an extraordinary session after Mayer and Tilley flew around the state this summer announcing that they had reached an agreement on a job-creation proposal that would scale back some of Missouri's existing tax credits while creating new incentives for businesses. But it quickly became apparent that many rank-and-file Republican senators had concerns about the bill.
A version passed last week by the Senate included deeper cuts than originally proposed to an existing tax credit for the developers of low-income housing. It also significantly pared back a proposed tax credit intended to draw international cargo flights to Lambert-St. Louis
nternational Airport. And the Senate version went beyond the original deal to include a Nixon-backed plan called Compete Missouri, which rolls several of Missouri's current business incentives into a single program with easier-to-meet eligibility standards and new authority for the Department of Economic Development to provide upfront cash to businesses.
State Rep. John Diehl, R-Town and Country, a lead negotiator on the legislation, declared earlier this week the Senate plan was "dead on arrival" and voiced particular opposition to the Compete Missouri proposal because he said it granted too much discretion to the economic development agency.
But Diehl said Wednesday the House's revised plan would include Compete Missouri, with greater accountability measures and a reduced cap on tax credits, starting at $86 million this year instead of $111 million as in the Senate proposal. The difference is attributable to the House's decision to keep the existing BUILD incentive for companies that undertake substantial building projects as a separate program capped at $25 million annually.
Whereas the Senate plan would have allowed warehouses associated with the St. Louis cargo hub to seek incentives under Compete Missouri, the House plan would direct them through the BUILD program.
The House plan would set a $100 million annual cap on Missouri's main low-income housing tax credit; the Senate plan seeks to impose an annual cap that would gradually decline from $110 million this year to $70 million by 2015. Diehl said the House plan also deletes the Aug. 28, 2018, expiration dates that the Senate had attached to programs providing tax credits for low-income housing and the renovation of historic buildings.
That change "would make it impossible to pass it over here," Mayer said.
Nixon spokesman Sam Murphey said Wednesday that the governor supports the House proposal. But Nixon also praised the Senate version when it was passed last week.
Diehl said since the governor now backs the House version, it should be moved swiftly to his desk.
"We believe the House proposal represents a sensible compromise that incorporates priorities from all sides and creates the strong taxpayer protections that we have sought all along," Diehl said.