Missouri special session ends with no economic development package

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - Legislation offering new tax incentives for Missouri businesses is officially dead because of a decision by the Missouri Senate to end a special legislative session.

The Senate on Tuesday permanently adjourned the session that began Sept. 6.

The House has not yet quit, but negotiations between the two chambers ended some time ago. And the House can no longer send the business incentive bill to the governor even if it wanted to, because the bill is in the physical custody of the Senate.

The legislation would have scaled back Missouri's existing tax credits. It also offered new incentives for international exports at the St. Louis airport, computer data centers, amateur sports events and other businesses. But lawmakers disagreed on whether to place expiration dates on two development tax credits.

Reaction is already coming in, and the House Minority leader, Mike Talboy, a Kansas City Democrat, says "This fiasco will go down in Missouri Capitol lore as the Lost Legislative Session."

The battle was basically between House and Senate leaders. Both chambers are controlled by Republicans.

A Lee's Summit Republican, WIll Kraus, says, "I am disappointed that we once again failed to pass meaningful tax credit reform. Future budgets will suffer because of it." Kraus was part of the group of Senate Republicans that insisted on sunsets for the tax credits.

Lawmakers did pass a social media bill known as the "Facebook Fix", and passed  bio-tech incentives known as MoSIRA. But MoSIRA may face a court battle over whether it is legal because the bill called for passage of the overall economic development package for MoSIRA to become effective.

NBC Action News' Chris Hernandez contributed to this report.