Backs carbon tax for Washington

Great News! Initiative 732, the revenue-neutral carbon tax, has been approved as having enough signatures to either be adopted by the Washington Legislature — or go on the November ballot. 248,000 signatures were required — I-732 garnered more than 360,000, indicating Washington voters really want it.

At the recent Paris Climate Conference, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and Space-X, suggested that a revenue-neutral carbon tax was a crucial part of addressing climate change, that all countries should have one. And hopefully, via the Washington Legislature and/or Washington voters, our state may soon be there with the very first such tax in the country!

I-732 taxes only industrial and certain businesses’ carbon emissions; it does not tax Washington people or cars. It’s a graduated tax: $15 per 1,000 pounds of emissions a company puts out the first year, increasing by $5 per year every year thereafter. So the polluters are taxed, but not the people. It’s revenue-neutral because it will reduce the state sales tax by 1 percent — plus fund a tax rebate for 400,000 families below a certain economic level.

Benefits? A carbon tax will encourage carbon-emission conservation in industry. Washington state taxes will be less regressive. A similar tax was adopted with great success in British Columbia in 2008, resulting in less carbon emissions and no negative economic impacts.

This story was originally published January 28, 2016 at 4:01 PM with the headline "Backs carbon tax for Washington."