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Idaho feels the fuel price pinch: Idaho fuel tax revenue declined for the first time in six years, as drivers faced with $4 per gallon gasoline shunned their cars … Suzanne Schaefer, a lobbyist for the Idaho Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association, “I even spotted a hybrid in Soda Springs. That’s not natural.” Based on state data, Idaho gas consumption fell over 6% in the first part of 2008,...

Time to head back into my pillow fort: Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) can be called the missing greenhouse gas: It is a synthetic chemical produced in industrial quantities; it is not included in the Kyoto basket of greenhouse gases or in national reporting under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); and there are no observations documenting its atmospheric abundance…With 2008 production equivalent to 67 million metric tons of...

There’s an emerging meme that recent high gas prices are a good thing. And I want to nip it in the bud. So… Bad Newsweek! Bad Wall Street Journal! Bad Freakonomics blog! Gas prices are not something to crow about. To be sure, there are some benefits to higher prices—a rush to innovate, and a bit less climate pollution — but they’re a tarnished silver lining, at best, to an awfully dark storm cloud. I can’t help...

British Columbia’s bombshell announcement of a carbon tax shift last month made me want some context. Here’s a rundown of other carbon taxes elsewhere in the world. As I noted, none of them is as consistent and comprehensive as BC’s, though some do have higher tax rates. In most cases, these levies came in tax shifts that reduced payroll taxes, business taxes, or other energy taxes. BC’s starts at Cdn$10...

On February 19, we applauded British Columbia’s new carbon tax shift. I’ve now had time to digest the plan. It’s even better than we said, and the province could tweak it to make it better still. This policy is the purest instance of a tax shift that I’ve ever seen. It’s an exceptionally faithful implementation of tax shifting—a policy innovation Sightline has been promoting since 1994 and especially since our...

In the wake of the most expensive gas in US history (even after adjusting for inflation), the Tacoma News Tribune has a stellar editorial that makes this point: High oil and gas prices exact a terrible toll on the low-income. They eat into the grocery budget of those who must drive extensively as part of their livelihoods or education. For rich and poor alike, they drive up inflation both directly...

British Columbia rocks my world. With the release of the annual budget today, provincial officials just announced that they will levy a carbon tax to help drive down emissions. Even better, the carbon tax will be a tax shift—surely the best instance of tax shifting in the Northwest: Finance Minister Carole Taylor vowed Tuesday that all money collected through the new tax will be returned through a package of tax...

A while ago we bashed a new Washington State policy to apply car-rental taxes to car-share vehicles. We said it was “like taxing penicillin during an epidemic” because car-sharing benefits everyone, not just those who car-share (fewer cars, fewer collisions, less congestion, etc.) And that’s why everyone should be paying attention to the latest on this issue. A bill exempting car-sharing companies from car-rental taxes is before the Washington State...

This is one of those days when it feels like things are changing fast. Here are two stories that caught my attention: 1) A panel organized by Congress—the melodically-named National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission—just called for higher federal gas taxes. In fact, they recommend a 40-cent per gallon hike. It sounds like the tax would go mainly to repair and maintain current road infrastructure rather than road...

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been spending my holidays reading papers about the price elasticity of demand for gasoline. Wait, where are you going? Listen, I’m sure you’ve heard this before: “It doesn’t matter if we tax gas, people won’t change their behavior.” Or: “Gas prices go up and down, but people keep using just as much.” So here’s what’s interesting about my Yuletide reading: these claims just...