Climate Commitment Carbon Tax Pt 1
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with today’s Fruit Grower Report. With the legislature on “break”, having finished the last session, that doesn’t mean all of their work was complete … in the eyes of ag producers.
Jon DeVaney, president of the Washington State Tree Fruit Association says there were a few matters that were left incomplete …
DeVANEY … “One of the bigger frustrations that we did not get action on this year is the implementation of ag exemption to the Climate Commitment Act.”
That exemption, DeVaney says was written into the legislation that became law …
DeVANEY … “Agriculture was supposed to be exempt for the first five years of the Act. So, we were expecting that there would be some mechanism for doing so.”
It began, DeVaney says as was intended …
DeVANEY … “The state did do its auction for carbon emissions and that resulted in some additional costs being added on to fuel prices at the pump by those fuel suppliers, whether at the pump or direct deliveries.”
But then, DeVaney says there were problems …
DeVANEY … “There was a lot of circular finger-pointing around how exactly that should work. And as a result, a lot of agricultural producers were seeing fuel invoices with the carbon surcharges to fund those auctions added on. No mechanism for either being exempted or getting reimbursed for those costs.”
Tune in tomorrow for more on what’s being done to fix the Climate Commitment carbon tax for ag producers.
