WPC: Carbon Tax Bad For The Washington Ag Industry

Governor Jay Inslee has proposed a carbon tax for the state of Washington.  Under his plan, carbon emissions would be taxed at $20 per ton starting next year.  After that, the tax rate would move higher by 3.5%, plus inflation annually.  The governor’s office estimates the carbon tax would generate over $3.3 billion over the first four years.

However, many in the agriculture industry say it would harm farmers and food processors across Washington.  Todd Meyers with the Washington Policy Center said Carbon Tax would hurt the ag industry, when trying to get their goods to market.

“But the problem is that transportation and heating at homes and other things like that that are not exempted.  So, if you want to get your products to market then you’re going to see a big increase in costs and that’s really where farmers and other folks are going to see the biggest impact.”

Meyers said under governor’s proposals, there are a lot of industries that are exempt from the Carbon Tax at the industry level.  He also told the Washington Ag Network it’s not a foregone conclusion that this Carbon Tax is moving forward, so farmers need to make their voice heard.

“When you say it’s better to have a seat at the table, what they’re basically saying is, ‘you’re going to get beat up, if you have a seat at the table you’ll get beat up less’.  I think that’s a bad choice.  I think farmers need to be very clear in the same way that manufacturing has, look, this is going to have a very high cost to an industry where we’re price takers, we’re not price makers, and we have to compete worldwide and it makes no sense for us to harm our own business.”

Meyers added the Carbon Tax proposal does very little to help the environment, but helps environmental groups and organizations.

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