I find it somewhat amusing that many environmental groups spent Tax Day calling for a tax increase. Specifically, U.S. PIRG, the Sierra Club, and other groups called upon Congress and the Bush Administration to increase taxes. Specifically, they called for the re-enactment of taxes on corporations and certain chemical feedstocks to pay for hazardous waste cleanups at abandoned waste sites under the federal Superfund program. Such a tax expired several years ago and the BUsh Administration opposes its reimposition. Although BushGreenWatch would prefer to call the imposition of this tax “restoring industry fees,” it is a tax increase, pure and simple.
Environmental groups claim Superfund taxes represent the “polluter pays” principle – the generally unassailable idea that polluters should pay for the costs of their polluting activities. The problem is that the Superfund tax imposes costs on companies (and, by extension, consumers and shareholders) irrespective of their relative contributions to pollution problems. The tax on chemical feedstocks imposes costs on the highly progressive and environmentally responsible corporation just as surely as it imposes costs on the corporate scofflaw. The Sierra Club’s Carl Pope claims “the Bush administration is using tax dollars instead of making corporate polluters pay to clean up their toxic messes,” but the same can be said of Pope’s preferred policy. Across-the-board taxes on corporations and specific chemical substances similarly use “tax dollars” to pay for cleanups and do nothing to “make corporate polluters pay to clean up their toxic messes.” As Angela Logomasini of the Competitive Enterprise Institute noted in this story, “The Sierra Club is basically saying that if you’re in business, you’re a polluter and guilty.”
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