Cook County proposal: tax pollution
We should tax things we don't like as much as we can.
We don't like pollution. It kills people.
So I was glad to hear the some members of the Cook County Board, while trying to figure out how to balance the budget without raising the property tax, have come up with a neat idea: tax pollution.
They would focus on the two power plants in Cook County that, under current plans, will continue to spew out pollution for another decade or so.
And they would tax each ton of pollution emitted.
Here is a Chicago Public Radio report on the proposal, introduced by Commissioner Roberto Maldonado. The Commissioner's website has a Daily Southtown article that includes reference to a $400 per ton of sulfur dioxide tax.
This would be a good thing. Cook County residents largely pay the cost from air pollution generated in Cook County, especially when poor people go to Cook County hospital for their asthma treatment, or when they die from cancer caused by air pollution (and we pay the cost of the coroner), so it seems right to tax the pollution that imposes these costs on us.
Cross-posted at djwinfo
13 comments:
"We should tax things we don't like as much as we can."
I think you might need a caveat in there. We don't like poverty, but I think our current policies of taxing poor people is disgusting. We don't like abortions, but do you really want to see a tax on that? Tax gouging isn't always an effective way to achieve social engineering. Too often the law of unintended consequences actually makes things worse.
How about tax corruption?
Bad idea.
Taxing pollution is going to hit the poor the hardest.
The plant will pass the cost onto inst customers, which are ultimately the consumers.
Being an affluent white male, I can afford it. I have a sweet high paying job. But what about all the single working moms out there? Is it fair we should clean up the environment on the backs of the poor?
The plan sounds like a subsidy for the rich to me. Unless you are advocating legislation saying the power plant *can't* pass the cost on to its customers...then I'd like this plan a lot more.
Judging by their policies, they care more about government revenue than they do poor people, anon 6:45. The electricity tax rate in Chicago is 18%, and as you say, it hits the poor the hardest.
That's the odd think about the left in Illinois.
Thatcherite sell off of public assets. (Labour would have nationalized those polluting power plants).
And chat about punishingly regressive taxes. (And that very un Thatcher like... it's just punishing).
Where'd the Greens go on this blog?
Taxing sulfur dioxide in Cook County would provide a market incentive for polluters to clean up.
$400/ton is a powerful incentive, as this tax could NOT simply be passed on to electricity consumers.
Our utilities in Illinois are deregulated, and power plants sell their product on the wholesale market.
Thus if a company increased its prices to cover the cost of the tax, wholesale purchasers could simply choose another company to purchase power from (e.g. one that is cleaner and thus does not have to raise its prices because of the tax).
Who do you think get sick from pollution? Mostly the poor people who live near the source of pollution? Who do you think suffers from the asthma epidemic? Mostly poor people. I agree that we shouldn't tax poor people. I don't think we should tax the first $10,000 of income. I think we should dramatically expand our state's earned income tax credit, and I think we should dramatically expand our personal exemption of $2300 (that's the first income we do not tax in Illinois -- after that, we all get taxed at a flat rate of 3%). But Elizabeth is right: the consumers of power from Cook County power plants can live anywhere. The market is now deregulated. So, it should be more expensive to buy dirty power than it is to buy clean power. Our pricing signals don't work that way yet, because we don't tax pollution enough.
I'd be curious IF the consumers of power from the dirty power plants in Chicago DO live elsewhere. In any event, I think we can all gather that the CEOs will not be taking a pay cut when this tax goes into effect. The consumers, whether here or there, will end up paying. But that's not to say I disagree with the concept that big polluters should be discouraged in favor cleaner power producers. I'd be more inclined to have the power plants directly give the fines or fees to the people that live in the area and get sick or have asthma rather than Stroger's and everyone else's relatives and campaign workers, though. 80% of whatever Cook collects is going to pay for salaries, benefits, and pensions, not pay for medicine or much help to the poor in the area at all.
Unfortunately, Dan, you yourself can't implement those policies that would lessen the tax burden on the poor. The people that can and have implemented their policies in Cook/Chicago don't seem to care that their tax policies make life much harder and worse for a lot of low-income people.
Chicago has the second highest sales tax rate in the US, and highest among major cities. The highest restaurant tax, which does hurt lower wage employees. The highest hotel tax, which does hurt lower wage employees. One of the highest electricity taxes (18%) in the US, and the highest in Illinois. The highest cigarette tax in the US.
But I'm with you on upping the standard exemption. I'd go to $20,000 or $25,000 (state and national) because taxing full-time minimum wage workers is still stupid, including FICA and Medicare. I think I saw a bill to raise the standard deduction in Illinois each year based on inflation or something. I also saw a bill that would increase the EITC a bit. But unfortunately, we don't see many proposals that do what needs to be done to reduce and minimize taxes on the poor, national, state or local.
I just haven't seen anything in Cook/Chicago that would give any tax relief to the poor, which leads me to think they care more about increasing government revenues than they do about poor people. What other conclusion is there?
Hmmm, the anon above is me. Wrong button I guess
In the case of Midwest Generation our taxing of their pollution has no cost to the citizens of Illinois. ILLINOIS CONSUMES ZERO OF THE OUTPUT OF THESE PLANTS. All of the power generated by these plants is exported outside Illinois by this foreign owned firm.
Who do you think get sick from pollution? Mostly the poor people who live near the source of pollution? Who do you think suffers from the asthma epidemic? Mostly poor people.
You need to give these folks your research behind these statements so they can go to court and sue.
You need start pushing a bill to expropriate or shut down power plants that kill.
Ok, so let's say we allow the first $20,000 of income to be tax free for people that make $20,000.
I am the power company. I call my new environmental impact costs an 'environmental impact cost' on the power bill. I slap $4.50 as the fee.
Being a poor person, my power bill goes from $30.00 to $34.50.
How does not paying income tax insulate me from this fee? It is not a tax.
Are we going to put in a line on the tax form allowing for a credit for poor people for paying this fee?
I just don't understand why you want to pass the cost of cleaning up the environment on the poor. It is not their fault, and they don't have the money to pay for it.
Bill Baar,
Evidence for the statement 'Who do you think get sick from pollution? Mostly the poor people who live near the source of pollution?' comes from a 2000 study by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health looking at Illinois coal-fired power plants. In fact the study shows that the pollution from the two plants in Cook County alone account for over 40 premature deaths *per year*, 550 emergency room visits and 2,800 asthma attacks.
I have a copy available from my website at dorianbreuer.com.
And Anon6:41AM, I think you misunderstand the deregulated electricty market. Midwest Generation is an electricty supplier that offers a certain price for its electricty on the regional electricty market. If MidwestGen decided to up its price on future contracts after the Cook County pollution tax ordinance goes into effect, then buyers - utilities in Illinois and regionally - can choose not to buy it. And they wouldn't because there is plenty of lower priced electricty.
So what the tax does, then, is immediately incentivize MidwestGen to either clean up or close its dirtiest plants.
And it should clean them up because their plants in Cook County are located in more densly populated areas than any other plant in Illinois and these communities are low-income and already suffering from poor air quality from other industrial sources (the Interstate 55 industrial and rail cooridor) and highway pollution (which is actually the largest source of air pollution).
For more information, see pilsenperro.org the Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization website.
I live 4 blocks from the Fisk plant here in Pilsen and 1.5 miles from the Crawford plant in Little Village so I strongly support this ordinance and intend to testify on Tuesday at the County Board meeting. But you don't need to live next to the plants to support it. That same Harvard study shows that the pollution from just the Cook County Coal-fired power plants (to say nothing of MidwestGen's twenty other plants in Illinois) drifts out at a 250 mile radius. So you all are likely breathing their air.
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