Posted on 10/17/2010 7:46:02 PM PDT by reaganaut1
Officials who have tried and failed to clean the air in California’s smog-filled San Joaquin Valley have seized on a new strategy: getting millions of drivers to shoulder more of the cost.
Faced with a fine of at least $29 million for exceeding federal ozone limits, the San Joaquin Valley’s air quality regulators are proposing an annual surcharge of $10 to $24 on registration fees for the region’s 2.7 million cars and trucks beginning next year. A decision is expected when the governing board meets on Thursday.
Although the surcharge is not expected to change how much people drive or what cars or trucks they buy, air pollution experts say it is a harbinger of the future. After decades of forcing industry to clean its smokestacks, retool car and truck engines and fine-tune gasoline, regulators are exploring what they can do to force consumers to face up to the pollution they cause.
“We, the people, are the ones whom we need to point the finger at,” said Seyed Sadredin, executive director of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, which administers federal and state pollution laws here.
While it already uses registration fees to support part of its budget, it is extremely unusual, if not unprecedented, for such an agency to make a point of penalizing drivers for the smog they create.
“I think it’s fair to say that this is the first time that a strategy has been directly targeted at the consumer, not at the manufacturer of the car or the manufacturer of the engine or of all the other pieces,” said Susana M. Hildebrand, the chief engineer for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
A provision of the Clean Air Act that sets fines for exceeding pollution limits originally required industrial companies to pay them
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
And then what. They stack up the currency outside to absorb the pollution?
“Although the surcharge is not expected to change how much people drive”
It will efficiently transfer dollars from citizens to Washington, which is the main point.
And what will these supposed fees be doing anyway? Other than line the pockets of those involved in Political Environmentalism and fraud.
Does anyone have pictures of LA freeways 30 years ago versus NOW?
I wish. IMO it’s all fraud. A bunch of BS. The San Joaquin was known as the Valley of Smoke by the Indians hundreds of years before cars, Industry. It’s water vapors, and just a scam by Environmentalists, and subsequently a money maker for the Left.
Air boards accross the nation are the most powerfull agencies in existence and are beholding to no one. Imagine the state legislature trying to raise our DMV fees.... there would be a fight royale, but the air district sends it to you as a penalty.
These are the worst viscious bastards and need to be run out of town on a rail.
Well, THAT’S interesting!
I second your motion. This whole “fourth branch of government” thing is disgusting and hopefully, will be something the TP rolls back. I’ll not hold my breath.
Its called a TAX
“Although the surcharge is not expected to change how much people drive”
Actually, it will - between this and everything else, all of the smart people will move and drive somewhere else.
I think we must start hanging every official and bureaucrat who says “take more money from citizens” to fix their problems. Start cutting. Start over with union agreements that are killing us that THEY GOT US INTO.
We will not pay anymore. I am so sick of idiots anywhere that just say keep taking more taxpayer money to fix the mess they have all helped foster and create. That’s their solution for everything.
Just go directly to the fed and ask for money. Save yourself from robbing the taxpayers. They are printing money like water, it’s all fiat crap anyway. Why take what little we’ve got left? Just walking wallets to these people, that’s all we are.
time to stop being enablers of these people. They need to be fired, run out on a rail, barred from their offices, dragged through the streets, along with all the union leadership. Tarred and feathered, hung out to dry.
As long as they just hemorrhage and can still vote rat... WGAF.
Get rid of thEse senseless boobs in office and get some real problem solvers in there. I’m sick of them taxing and putting fees on those everything that moves when they can’t figure out what else to do. They don’t have any solutions except to tax, tax, tax. ENOUGH. GET OUT.
The last straw for me was the 800,000 dollars they spent on a program to teach African Males how to wash their Genitals. More than I have paid in taxes in my life. All for that. I think I could have done better with the money.
totally ignored...
A plethora of green jobs will bring thousands of workers into the valley from other areas, and while some may take up a temporary residence, probably a majority will commute in if for no other reason than lack of housing in a largely rural region, so, with this flurry of green activity about to take place, one wonders why San Joaquin-registered vehicles would be taxed at all??? Is the proposed car-tax really a 'green jobs tax' in disguise?
And, one can't help but wonder how would one go about discerning which particular vehicle has paid their tax, and which is just passing through on the way to Yosemite or the Frog-jumping contest in Angel's Camp. Will vehicles have to display a window-sticker? will special ‘regional’ plates be issued? What would that cost the state? And, what would be the cost of enforcement?
Smell-test fail, and I haven't even gotten to the part about San Joaquin valley's geographical nature of being a bowl between mountain ranges that naturally traps heat in the dog days of summer and cold and fog in the winter, and, short of moving mountains, nothing will ever change that.
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/press/local-clean-energy-jobs,1503526.html
24 bucks ! That’s nothin !!! I have the priviledge of paying 50 every time I register a vehicle just because I live in the proximity of NYC, to pay for the MTA. DO I USE IT ???? Hell no.
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