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Broken Sin Tax?

Some good ideas from the Deep South.

Bills introduced in the Alabama and Texas would levy taxes on pollution. The Alabama bill would charge 10¢/pound for emitting toxic substances—a tiny fine, but a step in the right direction. The Texas bill would raise $1.2 billion for schools by taxing pollution from coal-fired power plants and gas-guzzling vehicles.

I don’t know what the politics of either legislature are like, but I’d bet that neither bill has much of a chance of passing. But the Texas bill comes in an interesting context: the Texas governor has proposed raising “sin” taxes—specifically, on cigarettes and topless bars—to pay for education.

The wisdom of those specific proposals is, I’m sure, controversial. But the general principal—raising taxes on things that society wants less of—seems entrenched on both sides of the aisle. And for good reason, since the economics just make sense: when you tax something, you get less of it. More Northwestern legislators should consider following the good examples of their Southern counterparts.

Time Can Heal Some Wounds

Thirty-five years ago—the year before the first Earth Day—many of the major environmental problems of the day seemed so enormous, pervasive, and intractable, that progress must have looked impossible. More than a hundred million highly polluting cars filled the highways. Tens of thousands of industrial and municipal facilities, from city sewer systems to factories, spewed pollution unchecked into air and water. Persistent and frighteningly hazardous pesticides were the norm. And despite these obvious problems—commentors likened breathing the air in Portland to smoking a pack of cigarettes each day—there was precious little political momentum to do anything systemic about them, and most environmental laws hadn’t even been conceived.

But 35 years later, the landscape is completely different. Big-picture trends in pollution are largely going in the right direction. Slower, admittedly, than we’d like. But while many of the most hazardous substances—DDT, PCBs, leaded gasoline—have left a legacy of contamination that still plagues us today, that legacy is gradually dying out.

Such advances didn’t happen overnight, but resulted of a slow accumulation of lots of small changes, both in people’s attitudes and in policies, that have taken decades to take hold. Progress hasn’t necessarily been steady, and some trends have stalled. But 35 years later, the problems that might have seemed completely pie-in-the-sky—say, shifting the entire US auto fleet from leaded to unleaded gasoline—are now old news.

Today’s problems—the rising accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the gradual erosion of biological diversity, the steady loss and degradation of natural habitats, even some newly troubling and persistent toxic chemicals—seem just as huge, abstract, and insurmountable today as did the pollution problems addressed by the first wave of environmental laws.

But if the memory and celebration of Earth Day teaches us anything, it is that even the biggest problems can yield to patience, time, and a steady will.

Pine box

As if physical hardship and job-market whiplash aren’t bad enough, loggers are also far more likely to be killed on the job than other workers. In fact, new stats in Oregon, based on worker’s comp figures, show that loggers are roughly 28 times as likely to be killed at work as the average joe.

While logging—along with other resource extractive industries like commercial fishing—helped define the Northwest, jobs in these sectors are diminishing and take a heavy toll on the people they employ. One interesting market-based solution is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification of timber operations. FSC labelling encourages employment stability, good benefits, and careful worker safety.

Hybrid Vigor?

Although hybrid gas-electric vehicles—including the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight and a version of the Civic—are certainly becoming more common, they’re still a rarity on the roads: in 2003 there were less than 44,000 registered in the entire U.S.

By contrast, there are about 230,000,000 non-hybrid cars and trucks in the US.

Virginia and Maryland have the most hybrid cars per capita—with 4.5 and 3.4 hybrid vehicles for every 10,000 residents. Washington and Oregon rank fourth and fifth, with about 3 hybrids per 10,000 people.

Hybrids should see a boost in coming years, with a new Ford hybrid SUV that gets 40 miles per gallon in city driving. But an even more effective fuel-saver is to live in a neighborhood where you don’t need to drive much. That’s one reason that residents of denser European cities use about a 40 percent of the highway fuels that Northwesterners do—it’s not just that they’re driving better cars, but also that they’ve arranged their cities so that the car is a convenience, not an absolute necessity. We could aim to do the same.

Update:this likely explains why Virginia ranks highly in hybrid ownership—if you drive a hybrid, you get to drive solo in the HOV lanes.

Big Green Money

Potlatch Corporation: big timber industry player obsessed with profits, or the cutting edge of sustainability? Actually, both.

Yesterday, Spokane-based Potlatch announced that all 668,000 acres of its Idaho forestlands have won Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification, the greenest label for wood products. Potlatch is the first publicly traded company in the U.S. to be awarded FSC status. And now Idaho has more FSC forest than Oregon and Washington combined.

In the meantime, the state governments of Oregon and Washington—both big time forest owners—continue to drag their feet on FSC certification, arguing (in part) that green labeling doesn’t pencil out. But if profit-hungry Wall Street thinks otherwise, shouldn’t the Northwest states reconsider?

What’s next for Potlatch? FSC certification for 700,000 acres of forest in Arkansas and Minnesota.

The Forest or the Trees?

Oregon is considering selling private timber companies the public’s 86,000-acre Elliott State Forest. Public schools net about $12 million each year from logging on the Elliott. But proponents of privatization want a fat one-time cash payment. In fact, one leading proponent was quoted today as saying, “We have a bottom-line goal, and we’re willing to support anything that achieves that bottom-line goal.”

Faster clearcut logging is not a good option in a region that’s already experienced very high rates of clearcutting. Over the past 30 years, private landowners in Southern Oregon clearcut 35 percent of their forests, about twice as fast as the state cut its forests. (For an eye-popping visual depiction of clearcutting in Southern Oregon, check out the Cascadia Scorecard’s animated forest maps–the Elliott State Forest is roughly in the center of the map’s Coast Range).

Selling the Elliott is economically shortsighted; it robs future generations of their heritage as well as a steady source of school financing. And private ownership would likely put the forest off-limits to Oregonians who have long enjoyed public access for hunting, fishing, and hiking. The move is reminiscent of the Biblical tale of Esau, who traded away his birthright for a bowl of soup when he was hungry.

A smarter move would be to consider Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification for the Elliott. Not only does FSC certification weigh factors like timber workers and environmental protection, but also it may even generate more revenue in the long run.

I'm the Tax, Man

“If you want people to consume something less, the simplest thing to do is price it more dearly.” Thus goes the argument for higher gasoline taxes, articulated by none other than General Motors’ chairman and chief executive G. Richard Wagoner Jr..

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise: for years automakers have expressed quiet support for higher gas taxes, mostly as a replacement for the fuel economy regulations (known as CAFE standards) that the industry abhors. Of course, there’s reason to be skeptical of their motives: higher fuel taxes are a political nonstarter, so by supporting them the industry is effectively supporting the status quo. The fact that gas taxes face such an uphill battle makes other reforms—limiting spending on new roads, pay-as-you-drive car insurance—all the more important.

Still, the theoretical case for higher gas taxes is strong, and even has support from a number of prominentconservatives.

So to the extent that Waggoner is sincere in his support of higher gas taxes, this may be one case in which what’s good for G.M. really is good for the country.

Canada births stay low

Statistics Canada today released further confirmation of the trend we reported in the Scorecard last month: birth rates are at historic lows in Canada, as they are in North America generally and in Cascadia especially.

Birth of a Notion, Part II

Concerning Dalton Conley’s book The Pecking Order, on which I commented on March 30: I’ve read the whole thing now.

In the book, he makes no arguments at all concerning tax policy.

He does demonstrate that large families are bad for middle children, all else being equal. And that’s important information that is little known. Most parents seem to think singletons are at risk of unhappy childhoods, when they actually tend to thrive, as Bill McKibben has argued. It’s the big broods that bring neglect and discontent.

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Library of the Streets

Bookcrossing is an interesting web-based service that “sets books free.” Members leave books in public places, then track their progression around the community and world online. It may be little more than a curiosity but I find it surprisingly hopeful. It engages people’s sense of community by tapping the fascination with serendipity. It also, in some small way, engenders greater society-wide efficiency of resource use. Many people read the same book, then discuss its merits online.