EDITORIAL: A first in pollution fees

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 5/26/8 | Editor

[SmithL]

Impatient with the glacial pace of federal regulators on greenhouse gas emissions, the Bay Area air quality district voted last week to assess fees on about 2,500 polluting businesses that they regulate.

The fees aren't large - the majority of businesses will pay less than a dollar - and they will mostly fund the district's administrative costs related to climate change, such as doing an emissions inventory for the Bay Area. But the precedent is significant: The district is the first in the nation to impose fees. Its success or failure will be a model for both the state and the nation.

Jack Broadbent, the district's executive director explained that businesses had issued a list of complaints that sound pretty familiar by now: 1) that the district's decision could be duplicative of the state's forthcoming regulations for AB32, 2) that we should all wait for a federal program, and 3) that having to comply with a "patchwork" of regulations was expensive, frustrating and inefficient. The first of these is a valid concern (Broadbent said they will re-evaluate once the state comes out with its prescriptives in June), the second is spurious, and the third, fortunately, or unfortunately, is the way it's going to have to be until there's an administration in the White House that's willing to impose the second.

[ridesthemiles]

The next thing you know, SF will be passing new regulations and laws making it illegal for businesses to move out of the city or even go “out of business”.”

Thye best part of this is that they plan to “take an emissions inventory”.....

The offshore winds move most of the pollution out of San Francisco and into the San Joaquin Valley and cities like Sacramento.
Therefore, there are NO emmissions left to “inventory” in San Fran, and Sacramento gets hammered for pollution they did NOT create.

The politicians in San Fran are definately a special breed.
They are outstandingly stupid.