Carbon tax can be funded through states --- empirics.

In Washington state, a circulating petition might be the key to both permanently cutting down on the state’s carbon footprint and also reforming what is widely considered one of the nation’s most regressive tax systems. If enough signatures are secured, the petition will allow the United States’ first-ever carbon tax a spot on the ballot. Carbon Washington is a grassroots carbon tax campaign founded by environmental economist and stand-up comedian Yoram Bauman. The idea of a carbon tax is pretty simple: It’s a form of carbon pricing that aims to drive greenhouse gas emissions down by requiring people to pay a tax or a fee on either the carbon they emit or the fossil fuels they purchase, and then either returning the revenue to the public or using it for new government programs (Washington state would do the former). Carbon Washington’s initiative proposes a starting fee of $15 per ton of carbon, which would gradually increase to a cap of $100 per ton over the next 40 years — the highest price-per-ton of any carbon pricing scheme introduced so far. “I think it’s a relatively new idea for a lot of people,” said Bauman. “When you talk about climate change, they think they’re going to have to spend money on solar panels or stuff like that.” But the idea is catching on. Washington requires citizens’ initiatives to raise 246,372 signatures via petition to qualify for the ballot. So far, Carbon Washington has raised 304,000 signatures, according to Bauman, and is hoping to reach 330,00 before it submits the petition at the end of the year to have a buffer of about 25 percent of the needed number of signers. “Once we qualify, it goes to the legislature in January, and the legislature essentially has two choices,” Bauman said. “Pass it and it goes to law, or it goes on the ballot in 2016.” Washington state isn’t the only one. Citizens and legislators in a handful of other states around the country, including Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island and Oregon, are in various stages of introducing similar proposals to their own state legislatures. Many are inspired by British Columbia’s carbon tax, which was introduced in 2008 and is widely considered by economists a prime example of a successful carbon pricing scheme. Currently the only carbon tax in North America, the tax — which is revenue neutral, meaning funds are returned to the public rather than kept as revenue by the state (in this case, in the form of other tax breaks) — charges $30 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions and has so far reduced fuel consumption by more than 16 percent without harming the Canadian province’s economy. “I think the experience from BC shows that a climate policy like this, a smart well-designed policy, can work,” Bauman said. But Massachusetts may give Washington state a run for its money. For their part, advocates in Massachusetts are also set on becoming the first state in the country to successfully implement a carbon tax, said Zaurie Zimmerman, president of Zaurie Zimmerman Associates Inc., board member for Climate XChange and co-chair of Business Leaders for Climate Action. Rather than pushing a citizen’s initiative, interested residents, businesses and civic organization have formed a coalition called the Massachusetts Campaign for a Clean Energy Future and rallied behind a bill introduced earlier this year by state Sen. Michael Barrett, a Democrat.