成人X站

SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Legislators looking at new, 19-cents-per-gallon carbon tax bill

Mar 7, 2019, 4:31 PM

carbon tax...

Washingtonians could be paying another 19 cents a gallon at the pump if a new carbon tax bill passes in the Legislature. (AP Photo/File)

(AP Photo/File)

If you thought that voting down Initiative 1631 was the end of a carbon tax here in Washington, you could be wrong — the tax has been resurrected in a more expensive form in聽.

The new bill, as outlined on the 产测听, director of the Washington Policy Center’s Center for the Environment, would add taxes to fossil fuels used for vehicles, home heating, and home electricity.

“We voted down a carbon tax last year that would have been … 13 cents a gallon, and what just passed out of the Senate Transportation Committee is actually higher than that, it would be … 19 cents a gallon,” Myers told 成人X站 Radio’s Dori Monson.

RELATED: Dori | Legislature punishing your lifestyle in the name of clean energy

For a two-car household, Myers and his WPC colleagues calculated that the bill would mean $200 to nearly $300 per year in new taxes.

“I think it has become a crusade, and I mean a crusade in a sort of emotional sense, because the costs of these things have totally been thrown to the side … When you keep screaming that climate change is an existential crisis, you stop caring about what the price is to working families,” Myers said.

The 19-cents-per-gallon tax actually is the cheapest carbon tax option currently in the Legislature, Myers noted ironically. Other proposals would see a gas tax going up to 34 cents per gallon — a burden for low-income families who have to live in cheaper areas outside the city and commute many miles to work聽 every day.

Legislators are also looking to subsidize electric vehicles, he said, but聽according to WPC research, it is wealthier people tend to purchase these cars.

“Not only are we hitting working families with taxes, we are now taking taxes from working families and handing them to wealthy families,” Myers said. “It’s really a mess.”

This session in Olympia represents an extreme swing to the Left on the political pendulum, in Myers’ view.

“It’s a really strange political time, it’s one of the strangest sessions I’ve seen,” he said.

Famous dog rehabilitator...

Jason Rantz Show

Famous dog rehabilitator previews new book, revealing how saving animals saved his life

Discover how famous dog rehabilitator Niall Harbison's passion project started and learn about his new book.

18 minutes ago

Associated Press

In an uneasy climate, diverse pride groups converge on DC with differing interests but common goals

WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥 You’ve heard of twofers. Kenya Hutton is a 鈥渢hreefer.鈥 His parents are immigrants, he鈥檚 a Black man and he鈥檚 gay 鈥 at a moment in history when anti-immigrant fervor, racism and anti-LGBTQ feelings are rampant and amplified by Trump administration policies. Hutton is hardly alone. As members of the Black and Latino […]

52 minutes ago

pennies U.S. Treasury...

Gee Scott and Ursula Reutin Show

‘Get rid of the d*** pennies’: Gee Scott celebrates U.S. Treasury’s decision

The U.S. Treasury announced it will phase out the penny, putting a stop to adding one-cent coins into circulation, the department said in a statement Thursday.

1 hour ago

Free Geek employee Ashley Martinez points to the screen while helping John Castro during a keyboard...

Associated Press

The Digital Equity Act tried to close the digital divide. Trump calls it racist and acts to end it

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) 鈥 One program distributes laptops in rural Iowa. Another helped people get back online after Hurricane Helene washed away computers and phones in western North Carolina. Programs in Oregon and rural Alabama teach older people, including some who have never touched a computer, how to navigate in an increasingly digital world. It […]

2 hours ago

FILE - U.S. Army soldiers cross a floating bridge on the Imjin River during a joint river-crossing ...

Associated Press

The US military spent $6 billion in the past 3 years to recruit and retain troops

WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥 The U.S. military spent more than $6 billion over the past three years to recruit and retain service members, in what has been a growing campaign to counter enlistment shortfalls. The financial incentives to reenlist in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines increased dramatically from 2022 through last year, with the […]

2 hours ago

Pope Leo XIV waves as he arrives for his first weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at The...

Associated Press

Can Pope Leo remain a U.S. citizen now that he’s a foreign head of state?

Pope Leo XIV’s election as the first U.S.-born leader of the Catholic Church elevated him to the extremely rare, and legally thorny, position of being an American citizen who now is also a foreign head of state. Born in Chicago as Robert Prevost in 1955, the new pope for the past decade has held dual […]

2 hours ago

Legislators looking at new, 19-cents-per-gallon carbon tax bill