5views.com

The legislature wants to raise license tabs up to $240 per year, this time based on fuel economy instead of the value of the vehicle.

Let’s start by getting to the real reason for this legislation:

The proceeds of this tax must be used for the design, construction, and operations of transportation facilities and services that provide alternatives to the use of single-occupant vehicles and for programs that encourage the use of these facilities and services. The allowable uses of these revenues include but are not limited to transit, high-capacity transportation, bicycle and pedestrian facilities, and transportation demand management programs.

That’s right. A back-door funding mechanism for light rail and all of the other pet projects. This bill is basically a repeal of I-695. The total cost to consumers is a mere $6 billion dollars over the next 10 years.

So not only is it a duplicate of the taxing of fuel consumed, since it’s a declining scale based on fuel economy, it’s also a mechanism to restore funding to light rail and other pet projects like HOV lanes and bike paths instead of building roads.

Not only is global warming alarmism nothing more than junk science, Chicken Little wants to scare us out of more of our money.

Some lowlights of the bill:

$20 per ton of greenhouse gas emissions, so:

So, soccer mom, to use the SUV you need to haul around your kids and the neighbors kids for the car pool, plan on shelling out more than it costs to buy those soccer uniforms (and maybe the basketball and track uniforms as well). I wonder how many kids will lose out on new clothes because of this.

It’s all our fault:

The legislature acknowledges the scientific consensus that global warming from greenhouse gases threatens Washington state’s economy and environment. The legislature further recognizes that it is incumbent on the people of Washington state to take measures to reduce the state’s contribution to global warming pollution.

Junk science. The holes in anthropogenic global warming alarmism are big enough to drive an SUV through. There is no consensus. Hundreds of the scientists who supposedly collaborated on the IPCC report on global warming have repudiated the document.

What about the volcano?

Emissions from road transportation account for approximately one-third of Washington state’s global warming pollution, and the transportation sector is Washington state’s largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions. [emphasis added]

This was in the Seattle Times on Dec. 1, 2004 (Mount St. Helens the state’s No. 1 air polluter):

But right now, the biggest single source of air pollution in Washington isn’t a power plant, pulp mill or anything else created by man.

It’s a volcano.

Since Mount St. Helens started erupting in early October, it has been pumping out between 50 and 250 tons a day of sulfur dioxide, the lung-stinging gas that causes acid rain and contributes to haze.

So the transportation sector isn’t the largest contributor after all. But what’s a little lie among legislators.

The scariest part of this legislation:

I think the scariest part of this legislation is what the legislature ‘finds’. These become statements of public policy if enacted into law. And since they’re in the law they can become the basis for other taxes, fees, fines and even litigation. Here’s a list:

• The legislature acknowledges the scientific consensus that global warming from greenhouse gases threatens Washington state’s economy and environment.
• The legislature further recognizes that it is incumbent on the people of Washington state to take measures to reduce the state’s contribution to global warming pollution. Emissions from road transportation account for approximately one-third of Washington state’s global warming pollution, and the transportation sector is Washington state’s largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions.
• The legislature finds that a greenhouse gas tax is an excise tax on sources that contribute to global warming.
• The legislature finds that the global warming costs associated with automobile emissions are not included in the existing costs of using a vehicle.
• Additionally, the legislature finds more alternatives to single-occupancy vehicle travel are needed to significantly reduce automobile vehicle miles traveled.
• The legislature finds that a greenhouse gas tax is an effective way to embed some of the global warming costs of automobile emissions into the cost of using a vehicle, and at the same time provides resources to fund transportation alternatives.
• The legislature finds that an exact measure of a vehicle’s greenhouse gas emissions, though preferred, is not administratively feasible at this time.
• The legislature finds that there is a sufficient relationship between a vehicle’s fuel economy and its greenhouse gas emissions to provide a rational basis for determining the vehicle green house gas emissions tax.
• Therefore, the legislature finds imposing a vehicle greenhouse gas emissions tax is a vital part of the state’s strategy to reducing global warming.

So let’s put aside the global warming hysteria for a moment and get down to brass tacks. This bill is nothing more than an excuse to raise the fees on vehicle license tabs. These people are still smarting from Tim Eyman’s Initiative 695 and they’re trying to get back at him. Bunch of whiners.

By the way, the $6 Billion in costs to the consumer that this bill raises is in addition to the $1.74 Billion that is raised by SB 6900 in just 4 years. Is this how the legislature makes congestion relief a priority?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 7:54 pm and is filed under Dumb Legislation, Tacoma Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.