Looking Up to the West
November 18th, 2006The American West has often been a model of Progressive thought, though it isn’t often looked to as such. It was the Western states that gave women the right to vote before others did, for instance, and it is the Western states that hold the future for the Democratic Party as much as the Midwest does. Some say that Democrats should look to the South, and that’s fine by me. I have no issue with Democrats making stands in North Carolina, Florida, Georgia Tennessee and Kentucky, but for my money, Colorado, Arizona and Montana are just as important to the future of the Party. The recent election of Democrats in Montana (as Governor, most significantly) signifies, to me, a wide opening for future electoral success, and so does this news out of Boulder Colorado.
Voters in this liberal college town have approved what environmentalists say may be the nation’s first “carbon tax,” intended to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases. The tax, to take effect on April 1, will be based on the number of kilowatt-hours used. Officials say it will add $16 a year to an average homeowner’s electricity bill and $46 for businesses. City officials said the revenue from the tax — an estimated $6.7 million by 2012, when the goal is to have reduced carbon emissions by 350,000 metric tons — would be collected by the main gas and electric utility, Xcel Energy, and funneled through the city’s Office of Environmental Affairs.
The tax is to pay for the “climate action plan,” efforts to “increase energy efficiency in homes and buildings, switch to renewable energy and reduce vehicle miles traveled,” the city’s environmental affairs manager, Jonathan Koehn, said. The goal is to reduce the carbon levels to 7 percent less than those in 1990, which amounts to a 24 percent reduction from current levels, Mr. Koehn said.
Glad to see. Good to see.