A New and Unnecessary Fee for Some Oregon Businesses
by the RoguePundit, November 26, 2009 [here]
There are a number of areas where the state could wisely spend a small amount of time and money on things that would benefit the environment. Collecting greenhouse gas emission data from a select minority of businesses for a non-existent cap-and-trade system certainly isn’t one of them. But leave it to our job-destroying governor to push [here] for it anyway.
Oregon environmental regulators are proposing fees ranging from $54 to $6,000 a year for 180 businesses required to report greenhouse gas emissions beginning in 2010.
The Department of Environmental Quality’s proposal [here] would apply to sources from electric power plants to paper mills to landfills. It goes before the Environmental Quality Commission next month.
DEQ says the fees will pay for two staff members to implement the reporting program, provide workshops and technical assistance and audit emitters’ reports. The agency’s annual budget for greenhouse gas reporting is $330,000.
Costs for businesses are capped at the lower of 15 percent of the air permit fees they currently pay or $6,000, whichever is less. Fourteen businesses would pay the maximum $6,000 charge, DEQ says. Thirty-seven would pay less than $200.
Gee, let’s raise the cost of doing business here in Oregon for absolutely no benefit….and sneak the proposal out just before Thanksgiving in hopes that no one will notice. The goal is for it to take effect in just over a month.
What’s the point of building a bureaucracy in anticipation of regulations that might someday be implemented? And don’t forget that in addition to paying the fee, the businesses will have to spend time and money getting folks trained, gathering and reporting the data, etc.
The best way to cut fat from the government is not to add it in the first place.
Note: the Rogue Pundit [here] is Lt. Col. USAF (ret) living in SW Oregon, a friend, an original blogger, and one of clearest thinkers in Oregon.