The Bay Area Air Quality Management District Wants to Tax Carbon Emissions
Thursday, April 17th, 2008Per the New York Times, Businesses in Bay Area May Pay Fee for Emissions. That’s because the government agency that regulates sources of air pollution within nine San Francisco Bay Area Counties, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), is trying classify carbon dioxide, among other gasses, as a pollutant.
Can the BAAQMD pull this off and have a new law operational by July 1, 2008? Signs point to NO. But they’ll give it a shot anyway.
Of course you yourself are a greenhouse gas emitter because you expell carbon dioxide with every move you make, every breath you take. What if you were charged at the same rate as proposed - how much would you get charged (or taxed, it’s all the same) per year?
At the rate of 4.4 cents per ton of carbon dioxide emitted you’d be on hook for 1.5 cents a year, assuming you exhale 704 pounds of Co2 per year. You could afford that, right?
How much would this factory have to pay? Lots and lots.