1. United States
2. Mo.
3. Letter

I am in strong opposition to SB1553 (Gregory), the so-called Missouri Defense and Energy Independence Act. This bill is not about energy independence or public health. It is a direct subsidy to the military industrial complex, wrapped in the language of supply chain security. The bill explicitly subsidizes the production of critical materials and pharmaceuticals for defense contracts. It includes tax credits for construction of a "nuclear security enterprise" located in Kansas City. Nuclear security enterprise means defense nuclear facilities under federal law. Missouri taxpayers should not be bankrolling the expansion of nuclear weapons infrastructure. Every dollar diverted to this bill is a dollar that could fund housing, healthcare, schools, and diplomacy. Worse, these subsidies flow to defense contractors at a time when the United States military is actively enabling a genocide in Gaza. American bombs, funded by American tax dollars, have killed over 70,000 Palestinians. The same military industrial complex that SB1553 feeds is directly complicit in mass death. Missouri should not offer tax breaks to companies whose products end up fueling occupation, siege, and slaughter. The bill also excludes companies headquartered in countries the U.S. intelligence community labels as threats. This nationalist framing distracts from the real threat: the endless war economy at home. The bill does nothing to prevent Missouri tax credits from going to weapons manufacturers who supply Israel's military or other violent regimes. It only bans foreign owned companies, leaving domestic war profiteers untouched. Additionally, the tax credits are transferable and saleable. This means a qualified company could sell its credits to an unrelated corporation, generating immediate cash while the state loses revenue. The clawback provisions are left vague, giving the department discretion to do little or nothing when companies fail to deliver. We are told this creates jobs. But jobs building weapons of death are not good jobs. They normalize militarism and add to our state complicity in future wars and atrocities. We should invest instead in renewable energy, public transit, and civilian manufacturing for human needs, not nuclear bombs and defense contracts. I urge you to reject SB1553. Cease funding the military industrial complex. Invest in life, not death.