Under the multi-state, northeast regional Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI), drivers will help pay for “this stuff” — electric cars, charging units, buses, trains, bike paths, etc. — every time they buy fuel at Vermont gas pumps.
When the Vermont Legislature next meets, there’s a good chance a new gas tax will be passed to penalize consumers for their carbon emissions. But is such a measure constitutional?
When the Legislature convenes in January, Vermonters can expect a full-court press to impose added costs and restrictions on many fossil fuel products and benefits. Here’s the latest on five climate change initiatives.
We all know a carbon tax would especially hurt lower-income Vermonters who can’t afford expensive electric vehicles, as well as rural Vermonters who have to make long commutes for work or are unable to rely on public transportation.
This past Friday, Burlington’s Democratic Mayor Miro Weinberger, flanked by VPIRG, announced support for a massive, statewide carbon tax on Vermonters, which would ultimately lead to a roughly $1.70 per gallon tax on home heating and vehicle fuels.
The TCI is a “stealth” carbon tax because it would raise the cost of gasoline for all Vermonters and would give climate activists in the Vermont Legislature the carbon emissions revenue they seek — all without actually having to vote on the record for a carbon tax.
Around our nation, Americans are concluding that individuals have crept into their governing commons, like sheep thieves, to appropriate “common” resources for individual or interest-group enrichment. And nowhere is this more evident than the so-called carbon tax.
Carbon taxes are a cure worse than the alleged disease: They have a minimal impact on emissions and will do next to nothing to affect climate change. In the end, they hurt the very citizens they are intended to help.
Even as Vermont legislative leaders and our governor insist they have no plans to push a carbon tax, the state of Vermont is participating in a multi-state initiative that will almost certainly by this December recommend a carbon tax on transportation fuels.
The next Statehouse session is half a year away, but Vermonters who oppose a carbon tax staged a protest Sunday to tell lawmakers in advance they are ready to fight carbon tax legislation.
“We oppose any carbon tax,” conservative groups, led by Americans for Tax Reform, wrote in their letter, which was published online Monday morning.
British Petroleum and Shell are pouring $1 million each into a Republican-backed group advocating for a tax on carbon emissions to combat climate change.