In an effort to increase Texas’s financial security, Governor Rick Perry is backing legislation that would bring the state’s stash of 6,643 gold bars home from a vault in New York. “We don’t want just the certificates,” freshman Rep. Giovanni Capriglione (R-Southlake), author of the bill, told the Texas Tribune. “We want our gold.”

The bill would create the Texas Bullion Depository, a secure, in-state facility to house the $1 billion-worth of gold bars owned by the University of Texas Investment Management Company. According to the Tribune, Capriglione said he was inspired by a speech Perry gave at a Tea Party event earlier this year, in which the governor described gold investments as an economic development tool.

The legislation will contribute to Perry’s recent efforts to lure corporations to Texas. Capriglione noted that “something on the scorecards of a lot of these businesses in deciding whether they want to come to Texas is stability.” Gold would prove that stability, he said. The stockpile “would give the state a reputation as being more financially secure in the event of a national or international financial crisis,” the Tribune wrote.

Perry told Glenn Beck on Tuesday that this is an exercise of the 10th Amendment and state rights. “If we own it, I will suggest to you that that’s not someone else’s determination whether we can take possession of it, bring it back or not,” Perry replied to Beck’s concerns that the Federal Reserve would not allow it.

Texas may be protecting itself from the collapse of the national currency, Jim Rickards, senior managing director of Tangent Capital Partners, suggested to Yahoo Finance. Think of it as the “Fort Knox of Texas,” Rickards said.

Could this gold-hoarding be in preparation for a future secession? Rickards said that this measure would provide the foundation for the state’s own currency.

Physically transporting the gold would be “impractical,” Capriglione said. Instead he proposes selling the gold and repurchasing it within state lines. The project would not be an expensive committment, he said—the gold bars could be stored in an area of 20 feet or less.