Got gold? The state of Texas sure does. But right now it’s stored up in New York City. And lawmakers want it to have a homecoming.
Last June, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill to establish the state’s own bullion storage facility. Now, state lawmakers are talking about how to make that happen. The comptroller’s office is even receiving bids from private contractors hoping to be a part of the project.
State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, who’s attending the state Republican convention this weekend, sponsored the original bill to establish the depository. Private companies are vying for the opportunity to design the depository to be built in Texas, because it doesn’t really make sense for Texas to pay money to store its gold elsewhere.
“We pay rental fees for that gold to be [in Manhattan], and so you start kind of thinking about buying all that gold and having it deposited up there and it being in safekeeping,” she says. “Maybe there needs to be more than one or two major depositories of precious metals in the United States, and Texas seems like a good place to do it.”
What you’ll hear in this interview:
– The timeline for this project
– Why Sen. Kolkhorst wants the depository to be a public-private partnership
– How citizens may be able to use the depository
