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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Global Warming Alert: Los Angeles considers "Climate Change Tax"
2008-04-09
To fight global warming, a bill in Sacramento would enable Los Angeles County transit officials to increase taxes on motorists. It's a bad idea that may foreshadow even worse to come.

Billed as a "climate change mitigation and adaptation fee," the measure would cost motorists either an additional 3 percent motor fuel tax, or up to a $90 annual flat fee, based on vehicle emissions. The new charges would be on top of taxes already paid at the pump. Either option requires a majority approval by a vote of the people.

"At this point the people of the Los Angeles region have just had it when it comes to traffic and air quality," claimed Assemblyman Mike Feuer, a Los Angeles Democrat and author of Assembly Bill 2558.
Who now travels around town on the LA subway, right ...
We concur about the traffic mess, but with little else Mr. Feuer claims in seeking to overtax motorists. The assemblyman's sleight of hand conflates two issues, the real problem of congested traffic and the contrived emergency of so-called global warming.

Congested traffic is easily verifiable. If it went away tomorrow, politicians would be unable to persuade voters to tax themselves to fix it.
Traffic congestion is caused by Global Warming.
Global warming at best amounts to less than a degree of temperature increase during the past century. If the recent several-year cooling trend is an indication, global warming may be going away. But because the only "proof" of long-term catastrophic consequences lies in contrived computer models, politicians like Mr. Feuer can insist even as temperatures decline that doomsday still lies ahead unless people tax themselves to fix the problem.

Los Angeles County motorists should ask Mr. Feuer what global temperature would persuade him that a new tax is unneeded. Global warming, now conveniently rechristened "climate change," is perfect for demagoguery. Those advancing the cause won't explain how they will know we have won the global warming fight, let alone what the ideal temperature is supposed to be.
If temps continue to fall they will take credit.
Climate has changed as long as the Earth has spun on its axis. It's been considerably warmer in recent centuries than today, and during those periods humanity simply adapted, indeed, flourished with fewer cold-weather deaths and more abundant crops.

But facts don't deter schemes like Mr. Feuer's to raise $400 million in additional taxes to pay for already funded transit projects. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority would have to place the issue on the ballot if AB2558 becomes law, and probably would do so because the agency would reap the bounty.

We hope, however, that motorists see the ploy for what it is and reject the additional tax. If not, it's a good bet this scare tactic will be repeated throughout the state.
Posted by:GolfBravoUSMC

#13  seems to me crsoopatch taht the particulate concentrations in the air have been blamed for climate change, so my original comment stands;
but actually i was using the california auto anti-smog issue as the lead in to the california leads the rest of the US down the road line of thinking.
Posted by: USN,Ret.   2008-04-09 17:39  

#12  People in LA love their beaches. All that sun bathing is using up the Sun's radiation and reducing Sun Spots. This allows Cosmic Rays to bombard the Earth and cause more cloud cover. More cloud cover causes "Nuclear Winter" or Climate Change.

Solution is a beach tax to help control global Climate Change. Works for me! Am I the only one that sees the solution.

Next stop Nobel Beach Prize.
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC   2008-04-09 16:20  

#11  Interesting that you should bring up China, there, crosspatch.

If the money from this tax would help develop mass transit for traffic relief I might be sympathetic because getting stuck in traffic is a bitch. But if the assemblyman thinks it's going to reduce global warming and air pollution I think he's barking up the wrong tree.

Because from what I've heard, the biggest source of air pollution in the LA Basin these days is all those giant cargo ships from China that offload their plastic crap at San Pedro or Long Beach. The cars have gotten a lot cleaner and more efficient but the ships haven't. I went to San Pedro one day last year and those bad boys were all belching tons of ugly, brown, diesel fuel exhaust into the atmosphere. They do it every day and there are a lot of them. Now, you'd think some smart politician in Sacramento might consider taxing them, wouldn't you?
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2008-04-09 16:12  

#10  "I must respectfully disagree. Take a look at your car's emission systemss; most have their genisis in California-only systems that have spread, either by other state's jumping on the CA eco-bandwagon, or car companies doing the cost-cutting thing. If this kudzu takes root out there, it is only a matter of time before it spreads."

Those changes were for AIR POLLUTION not for climate change. Were you alive in the Los Angeles area during the 1960's? The air was positively horrible.

China is adding the equivalent CO2 emissions of the entire UK every 90 days. In other words, if we went and killed every single human being in the entire UK and took the carbon footprint there to zero, China would make up the difference in three months. Any change LA would make to their emissions would probably be swamped in literally minutes by a corresponding growth in China's emissions. Every barrel of oil not burned in the US is a cheaper barrel that can be burned in China. We aren't "saving" anything. We are simply making it cheaper for someone else.

Even if Los Angeles were to find ways to significantly reduce CO2, if the entire world adopted them, it STILL wouldn't make any difference because people still do not understand A: the scale of CO2 emissions or B: that those emissions aren't even impacting the climate to begin with. THERE HAS BEEN NO WARMING FOR 10 YEARS. Before that there was 30 years of cooling between the 40s and the 70's, about 15 years of warming, and the last 10 years have been flat to slightly cooling.

THERE ISN'T A PROBLEM THAT NEEDS TO BE SOLVED. Please, lets stop wasting money trying to "solve" non-problems.
Posted by: crosspatch   2008-04-09 15:37  

#9  t least MTBE is only degrading the quality of groundwater in Caliphornia.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2008-04-09 15:10  

#8  Fifteen years ago California brought the world mandated MTBE, an insidious pollutant as bad as any other element in gasoline.

Then they quietly dropped MTBE in favor of Bio-fuel additive helping increase the world food shortages.

Boy is the rest of the country and the world lucky California politicians are looking out for them.
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC   2008-04-09 15:01  

#7  I must respectfully disagree. Take a look at your car's emission systemss; most have their genisis in California-only systems that have spread, either by other state's jumping on the CA eco-bandwagon, or car companies doing the cost-cutting thing. If this kudzu takes root out there, it is only a matter of time before it spreads.

And the funny thing is, when all this California-mandated-junk actually results in the limitation of energy-efficient technologies like diesel engines, the people who got it enacted are going to blame oil company conspiracies.
Posted by: Abdominal Snowman   2008-04-09 14:32  

#6  If Hollywood went away then all the Hot Air emitted would stop and Global Warming would be solved.

When I lived ion LA Global Warming would start every morning and get worse when the fog cleared. It always got better at night.

The logic is that since most of the traffic is in the daytime and it's hottest in the daytime therefore the heat must come from the traffic. Tax the traffic.
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC   2008-04-09 14:28  

#5  It's a "tax". Of course it's gonna spread. Tommy Menino's probably writing up the paperwork right now.
Posted by: tu3031   2008-04-09 14:25  

#4  "But there is no way in hell that the government of Los Angeles is going to impact even in the most tiny of ways..."

I must respectfully disagree. Take a look at your car's emission systemss; most have their genisis in California-only systems that have spread, either by other state's jumping on the CA eco-bandwagon, or car companies doing the cost-cutting thing. If this kudzu takes root out there, it is only a matter of time before it spreads.
Posted by: USN,Ret.   2008-04-09 14:17  

#3  So now we get down to the entire point of making such an issue over "climate change" ... so govt can extract additional taxes. But there is no way in hell that the government of Los Angeles is going to impact even in the most tiny of ways the climate of the entire planet. It is pure crap. The US isn't even the world's largest CO2 emitter and US emissions have been DROPPING since 2005.

Not to mention that there has been no "global warming" for the past 10 years. Climate ALWAYS changes.
Posted by: crosspatch   2008-04-09 14:06  

#2  And if you complain, they'll tell you about the new "Bad Attitude" tax...
Posted by: Chief Running Gag   2008-04-09 13:48  

#1  How about a "statist tax", which assesses a substantial fee for every enacted statute or regulatory change upon both the proposers and the legislators. The legislators get their salaries, less the statist tax costs of any legislation passed during their term of office. Lobbyists have to pay the state in order to lobby said legislators for new regulations, new taxes, and new mandates. Include an automatic exemption for deregulatory and tax-cut initiatives.
Posted by: Mitch H.   2008-04-09 13:21  

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