Tax on hazardous substances gets an amendment makeover

The Clean Water Act of 2010, also known as House Bill 3181, emerged from the House Finance Committee yesterday in an amended form. Here’s a basic summary of what has changed in the bill:

Before: Raises the state Hazardous Substance Tax from 0.7% to 2%.
Now: Raises the state Hazardous Substance Tax by 0.1% per year up to a total of 0.4% increase.

Before: No export tax credit for oil refineries who sell their product out-of-state.
Now: Export tax credit has been included so that Tesoro, a Washington state refinery that does not own its oil fields (unlike other oil refineries in the state), will not be at a disadvantage when selling its product to states like Oregon.

Before: $225 million per year, with a significant portion going to backfill the state’s General Fund at first, decreasing each year until the majority of the funds go to stormwater cleanup within 5 years.
Now: No funding to General Fund; $150 million to environmental cleanup over 5 years.

This has been one of the more contentious bills of the 2010 session. At a packed public hearing on the proposal in the House Capital Budget committee, refinery workers testified that increasing the tax could cost them their jobs and hurt communities where refineries are located. On the other hand, local governments and environmental groups testified that the bill would create jobs in stormwater infrastructure and help clean up waterways like Puget Sound and the Spokane River.

In passing the amended version of the bill, legislators were attempting to recognize the importance of addressing stormwater cleanup while also being sensitive to the concerns about loss of family-wage refinery jobs. The environmental community hopes legislators will strengthen the proposal as it works its way to a possible floor vote in the House. This will definitely be a bill to watch from now until the end of session.

Today's hot list

Finance Committee will take up the revenue bill this morning, and the current plan is to tackle the capital and operating budgets on the floor today. Likely to be a late night.

8:00 HHR D Financial Institutions & Insurance
Public Hearing: HB 3162 – Authorizing the creation of a state bank

9:00 HHR A Finance
Public Hearing: HB 3191 - Relating to modifying Washington state excise tax laws to create jobs and to preserve funding for education, public safety, health care, and safety net services for elderly, disabled, and vulnerable people.

Noon Floor

House Democrats Target Tax Exemptions in Budget Plan

From the AP:

OLYMPIA — State House Democrats want to raise about $760 million in taxes by closing a long list of sales and business tax exemptions and collecting more money from smokers, bankers, lawyers and accountants.

Read the full story here

The long-awaited revenue proposal

Rep. Ross Hunter will be meeting with reporters in a few minutes to discuss the House revenue proposal that everyone has been waiting for.

And to answer the question you're likely thinking - no, the proposal does not include a sales tax increase. The proposal is largely made up of tax code changes that would close tax loopholes, reduce tax avoidance and end certain tax exemptions. You can check out a summary of the five-part proposal here and here.

The House Finance Committee will take up the proposal tomorrow at 9 a.m.

This week's hot list

Following today's fiscal committee cutoff, most of the action this week moves to the House floor so that bills from the Senate can be voted on by Friday's opposite-house cutoff. Committees will continue to meet this week in the mornings, and here are some highlights.

Tuesday 3/2
8:00 HHR D Financial Institutions & Insurance
Public Hearing: HB 3162 – Authorizing the creation of a state bank

Wednesday 3/3
8:00 HHR C Community & Economic Development & Trade
Work Session: Washington Minority Small Business Survey by UW Foster School of Business; 2009 Evergreen Jobs Act – progress report

9:00 HHR A Early Learning & Children’s Services Jt. W/ Judiciary
Work Session: Report from the Administrative Office of the Courts on the Family and Juvenile Court Improvement Plan.

Thursday 3/4
8:00 Senate Hearing Room 4 Agriculture & Natural Resources Jt. W/ Senate Natural Resources, Ocean and Recreation
Work Session: Eastside forest health

Friday 3/5
9:00 HHR D Higher Education
Work Session: Interim planning regarding future work on tuition policy.

Tele-town hall meetings pwn Monday night reruns

Thousands of folks in Washington's Vancouver will receive a call tomorrow night from Rep. Tim Probst inviting them to participate in a telephone town hall.

Folks who don’t have a landline won’t receive the call so if you're from the 17th district and want to dial-in, call toll-free 877-229-8493 and enter PIN 15547 when prompted. The call will start at 6 p.m.

(Pwn is a great word, by the way. No vowels. One syllable. We like it.)

Spending pwns cuts, say economists

Marilyn Watkins of the Economic Opportunity Institute cites a pretty remarkable statistic, which appeared in her column last week in the Puget Sound Business Journal:

According to Mark Zandi, economic advisor to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and businesses around the world, each $1 of general state spending results in a $1.41 increase in economic activity. Using that multiplier, the $3.4 billion already cut from our state budget will lower our gross state product (GSP) by $4.8 billion through 2011. In 2008, there was one job for every $109,100 of GSP. Using a simple ratio, the loss in GSP equates to about 44,000 fewer jobs throughout Washington’s economy.

Yes, even conservative-leaning economic advisors admit that government spending pwns government cuts.

This also gives me the chance to post one of my favorite rap battles: Hayek vs. Keynes showing off mad macroeconomic skillz.