SCHWARZENNEGGER WANTS TO INCREASE GAS TAX TO FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING
hope | 17.02.2006 17:47 | Globalisation | Technology
California Governer Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration is expected this month to release a far-reaching proposal to combat global warming that calls for increasing the price of gasoline to fund research into alternative fuels and requiring industries for the first time to report the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions they produce.
Sources at the state Environmental Protection Agency -- which is charged with writing the recommendations to achieve Schwarzenegger's goals -- say the proposal will call for a new charge on petroleum equal to less than a penny per gallon of gasoline.
This development, if true, illustrates a couple of important points-
1. Sound public policy never gets between a politician and an election. Obviously battered by the wholesale defeat of his Propositions in last year's special election, the Governor has apparently forgotten his oft-stated opposition to imposing new tax burdens and is looking to get back in the good graces of the coastal California elite who lack any understanding of the relationship between lower taxes and economic growth. Adding "less than a penny per gallon of gasoline" may seem like a nonevent to the fashionable crowd along the Malibu shoreline; but in the real world the last thing the average commuter needs is higher gas taxes in any amount (and we all know that today's "less than a penny" is tomorrow's "more than a nickel").
2. Environmentalists are rediscovering the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in their intent to craft a political system honoring States' rights. OK, so you're an environmental activist reading this and entirely disagree with my analysis above. Even so, can we agree on this?
Throughout much of my life, I have encountered the stated belief of "progressives" that the notion of State sovereignty had to be emasculated because the notion served only to preserve bad public policies (e.g., segregation in the South). However, recently, without a friendly ear in Washington, D.C., the same progressives have--or should have-- discovered that the idea of States' rights is rather attractive when the issue turns to environmental initiatives such as that of Governor Schwarzenegger. California is experimenting where the federal government will not go.
I just hope the value of State sovereignty is remembered the next time a State does something that environmentalists don't like. Diversity of social policy from State to State is of value even where one doesn't like a particular policy that such diversity may produce.
This development, if true, illustrates a couple of important points-
1. Sound public policy never gets between a politician and an election. Obviously battered by the wholesale defeat of his Propositions in last year's special election, the Governor has apparently forgotten his oft-stated opposition to imposing new tax burdens and is looking to get back in the good graces of the coastal California elite who lack any understanding of the relationship between lower taxes and economic growth. Adding "less than a penny per gallon of gasoline" may seem like a nonevent to the fashionable crowd along the Malibu shoreline; but in the real world the last thing the average commuter needs is higher gas taxes in any amount (and we all know that today's "less than a penny" is tomorrow's "more than a nickel").
2. Environmentalists are rediscovering the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in their intent to craft a political system honoring States' rights. OK, so you're an environmental activist reading this and entirely disagree with my analysis above. Even so, can we agree on this?
Throughout much of my life, I have encountered the stated belief of "progressives" that the notion of State sovereignty had to be emasculated because the notion served only to preserve bad public policies (e.g., segregation in the South). However, recently, without a friendly ear in Washington, D.C., the same progressives have--or should have-- discovered that the idea of States' rights is rather attractive when the issue turns to environmental initiatives such as that of Governor Schwarzenegger. California is experimenting where the federal government will not go.
I just hope the value of State sovereignty is remembered the next time a State does something that environmentalists don't like. Diversity of social policy from State to State is of value even where one doesn't like a particular policy that such diversity may produce.
hope