Texas SB 1751 — which would have capped Bitcoin miner demand-response participation at 10% — dies in House State Affairs Committee after passing Senate 30–1; industry lobbying preserves unlimited subsidy access

Opening

In May 2023, Texas Senate Bill 1751 — which had passed the state Senate 30–1 and would have limited Bitcoin mining companies’ participation in ERCOT demand-response programs to 10% of total program load — died in the Texas House State Affairs Committee without receiving a floor vote. The bill’s death preserved miners’ unrestricted access to ERCOT curtailment subsidy programs immediately before the August 2023 heat wave in which Riot Platforms alone collected $31.7 million in a single month.

What Happened / Key Facts

SB 1751 provisions:

1. Cap cryptocurrency mining companies’ share of ERCOT demand-response programs at 10% of total program load
2. Eliminate state tax abatements for data center operators (including miners) starting September 2023

Senate vote: April 12, 2023 — passed 30–1, near-unanimous, reflecting bipartisan concern about the equity and scale of miner subsidies.

Industry response: Riot Platforms VP Pierre Rochard publicly opposed the bill, framing it as “misguided”: “These abatements have helped attract bitcoin miners to Texas and they’ve created hundreds of rural jobs.” The industry accepted the parallel SB 1929 registration requirement (mandatory disclosure of facility data) but coordinated opposition to the financial cap.

House outcome: The bill failed to advance out of the House State Affairs Committee. No floor vote was held. The 88th Legislature ended its regular session without passing SB 1751.

What passed instead: SB 1929 (registration requirement for facilities >75 MW, no financial limits) became law.

Why This Event Matters

The SB 1751 outcome illustrates the pattern by which Texas’s mining industry navigated the 2023 legislative session: accepting transparency requirements while successfully defeating financial constraints. The 30–1 Senate vote suggests the subsidy concern was not partisan — it died in the House because of committee gatekeeping, not floor opposition.

The bill’s death directly preceded the August 2023 heat wave in which Riot collected $31.7 million. Had SB 1751 passed, miners’ share of ERCOT demand-response programs would have been capped at 10%, potentially limiting that payout. Instead, Riot earned an amount in one month that exceeded its full-year 2022 curtailment earnings, contributing to a $71.2M FY2023 total.

The transparency-passes/financial-cap-fails pattern recurred in SB 6 (2025): that bill imposed mandatory curtailment hardware on new entrants and directed review of 4CP cost allocation but did not limit existing miners’ voluntary demand-response participation.

Broader Context

SB 1751 was one of several parallel 2022–2023 legislative and regulatory efforts to address the miner subsidy question: the Markey-Warren congressional inquiry (October 2022), the ERCOT voluntary curtailment program launch (December 2022), SB 1929 registration requirement (2023), and the DOE EIA mandatory reporting effort (January 2024, later blocked). Each initiative achieved partial progress on transparency; none established a binding cap on miner subsidy participation.

Research Gaps

• Specific lobbying disclosures, if any, by Riot Platforms, the Texas Blockchain Council, or other industry actors against SB 1751 during the House State Affairs Committee stage.
• The committee members who effectively blocked the bill from advancing to a floor vote.

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