APRIL 17, 2015
The Alaska Senate has approved a new tax on refined fuel to
pay for a spill prevention and response program run by the Alaska Division of
Environmental Conservation.
The Senate voted 13-7 on Friday to increase the pump price
of gasoline, marine fuel and heating oil by 0.95 cents per gallon.
House Bill 158, proposed by Rep. Cathy Muñoz, R-Juneau,
suggested a cent-per-gallon increase. It passed the House by a single vote,
21-19, on April 8.
As the bill moved its way through committees in the Senate,
senators cut the proposed tax increase by five hundredths of a cent, to provide
what DEC has truly asked for, said Sen. Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna.
“We thought a penny a gallon was too much,” he said while
testifying in favor of the bill.
DEC commissioner Larry Hartig previously said the state’s
spill response program would be facing a “$3 million to $7 million hole” in the
next fiscal year without help.
The proposed tax increase will not affect the cost of
aviation fuel or fuel for the Alaska Marine Highway. Micciche said the FAA
controls taxes on fuel sold at FAA-regulated airports, and “frankly, it was
more trouble than it was worth” to deal with the FAA.
Furthermore, the tax is only applied once — on sales from a
gas station to a driver or boater. It doesn’t apply to sales from a refiner to
the gas station.
The DEC program typically deals with cleanup in cases when a
responsible party can’t be found to take charge of cleanup. Sometimes, Micciche
said, a homeowner has died or a business has gone out of business, leaving a
spill behind.
Opposition to the bill came largely on the taxation grounds.
“It looks like another tax and spend operation,” said Sen. Bert Stedman,
R-Sitka.
Sen. Click Bishop, R-Fairbanks, responded that the tax isn’t
necessarily permanent. On the Senate floor, he promoted the idea of spill
prevention through education and said that if education results in fewer
spills, there will be less need for a cleanup fund.
“Maybe some day in the not-too-distant future, we could come
back and remove this,” he said.
HB 158 now returns to the House, whose members must decide
whether to approve the Senate’s slightly lower tax.
If the bill becomes law, it would be the first tax increase
on the public since 2005.
Unbelievable. Apparently the idea of raising the gas tax to
pay for our states' roads and ferries will remain inconceivable to this body.
Source: http://juneauempire.com