By Josh Kelety
WNPA Olympia News Bureau
A tax on carbon emissions proposed by Governor Jay Inslee has taken a big step forward. On Feb. 1, the state Senate Energy, Environment, and Technology Committee passed a revised version of Inslee’s carbon tax plan with a 6-4 vote.
In early January, Gov. Inslee proposed a $20 per ton of emitted carbon tax, with exemptions for certain manufacturers, agricultural industries and airplane jet fuel.
His plan would have funneled the revenues into clean energy infrastructure projects, forestry and assistance for low-income families dealing with increased energy costs and individuals displaced from jobs as a result of the tax.
Inslee has pushed a carbon tax several times in recent years, with no success.
The amended substitute version of the Governor’s bill, Senate Bill 6203, brings down Inslee’s proposed tax rate to $10 per ton starting in July, 2019, and increases annually by $2 per ton starting in 2021 until it reaches a cap of $30 per ton. In 2030, the state Department of Commerce will make recommendations to the Legislature on the bill’s impact on carbon reductions and whether to reduce or raise the tax rate.
The original proposal had no cap and an annual 3 percent increase.
“This is a much more modest proposal,” said Sen. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, chair of the Senate Energy, Environment, and Technology Committee and primary sponsor of the bill.
In addition to the lowered rate, the substitute version also creates a rural economic development account — which will take in 15 percent of the annual tax revenues — and prohibits local governments from passing their own taxes on carbon emissions. Another change in the new bill will reduce state car tab fees for vehicle owners whose income is 200 percent under the federal poverty level.
The committee passed several amendments including an exemption for aluminum refineries and aluminum producers, which was sponsored by Carlyle.
The package still faces obstacles: Senate and House Democratic leadership, while publicly open to the concept of a carbon tax, have not named it as a priority piece of legislation they want to pass during this session.
However, Senate Majority Leader Sharon Nelson, D-Maury Island, said at a Jan. 30 press conference that the carbon tax proposal has “gained a lot of steam since we got into session.”
House and Senate Republican leadership has been largely opposed to the tax.
Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, who voted against the bill in committee, slammed the bill as a job killer that would drive manufacturers out of the state and condemned the variety of exemptions written into the legislation as “shocking” and “appalling.”
“What you’re doing is exempting the companies that have the most lobbyists,” he said.
Meanwhile, environmental advocacy groups are threatening to put a carbon tax initiative before voters on the 2018 fall ballot if the Legislature fails to pass their own proposal. In 2016, voters turned down a carbon tax ballot initiative with about 40 percent in favor.
