Daily Archives: March 10, 2017

Tennessee is one of the nine states that significantly cut taxes in the 2016 legislative session, according to an annual report released last week by the American Legislative Exchange Councils Center for State Fiscal Reform.

In the ALEC news release, Johnathan Williams, chief economist and vice president of the Center for State Fiscal Reform, said that Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Utah were also highlighted for enacting changes that provided substantial taxpayer relief.

While hardworking American taxpayers have painstakingly waited 30 years for comprehensive tax reform at the federal level, states continue to take the lead by providing meaningful tax relief, he said.

Of the nine states, Mississippi, Florida, New York and Tennessee achieved landmark tax relief during their 2016 legislative sessions.

The report said Tennessees recent phase-outs of the death tax and Hall income tax the 6-percent tax on interest from savings, notes, stocks and bonds, which will be phased-out by one percent each year until its complete elimination in 2022 will likely heighten the states prosperity, based on evidence from other no-income states.

As Tennessee lawmakers are already considering ways to further provide taxpayer relief in the 2017 legislative session, the report pointed out that the burden of taxation can be successfully minimized by enacting a principled tax system that isnt aimed at class warfare or social engineering.

Tax reform may have stalled out on the federal level, but these nine states took a step in the right direction, Joel Griffith, director of the Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force at ALEC, added in the release. After all, states with lower tax burdens and more economic freedom regularly outperform their higher tax and more restrictive counterparts. Legislators successfully implementing pro-growth tax cuts are leading the way for others.

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Tennessee highlighted for 2016 tax cuts - Maryville Daily Times

A new amendment to a bill modifying how annual property tax increases are calculated would eventually create a flat tax increase of 3 percent a year for residential properties.

The Nevada Association of Counties presented the bill on Thursday to the Assembly Committee on Taxation, giving the committee members something new to think about during their second hearing of the bill.

The amendment also scrubbed a previous idea to calculate annual property tax increases using a 10-year rolling average of the Consumer Price Index. Instead, the annual increase would be set using the old method, doubling the previous years CPI or finding the 10-year average for the growth rate of taxable home value, whichever is higher.

For Clark County and most of Nevadas other counties, NACO executive director Jeff Fontaine testified, that would mean a newly established floor of 2.6 percent in fiscal year 2018 on both residential and commercial taxes.

The floor could increase to a maximum of 3 percent, where it would become locked. It could not decrease.

Fontaine said he expected most counties would reach 3 percent in five years.

At that point, residential property taxes would increase by 3 percent annually, because their ceiling is set at 3 percent. Annual increases in commercial property tax would retain their ceiling of 8 percent.

The point of setting floors is to avoid a situation like Clark County had in fiscal year 2017. Under the current property tax laws, both commercial and residential property taxes increased by only 0.2 percent.

The intent here is to stabilize a revenue source that the counties and other government sources rely on, Fontaine said.

More than 15 people most representing city and county governments testified in support of the bill, saying it would bring predictability to property tax revenues for local governments.

Lorinda Wichman, a Nye County commissioner and NACO executive committee member, said her county has reduced its staff by a quarter and eliminated services not required by law, such as subsidies to veteran services and animal shelters.

This amendment would allow counties to plan ahead when considering their budgets, she said.

About 10 people spoke against AB43, contending that an increaseed floor of 3 percent a year would hurt citizens, especially those living on a fixed income or enduring a financial hardship.

Were concerned about the fact that if you stabilize these taxes which may be good for government that for us when our incomes go down, (the tax) never goes down. It goes up every year, said Janine Hansen, state president of Nevada Families for Freedom.

Contact Michael Scott Davidson at sdavidson@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861. Follow @davidsonlvrj on Twitter.

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Amendment to property tax bill would eventually create flat tax increase of 3 percent a year - Las Vegas Review-Journal

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's Pruitts vow to empower the people means empowering corporations, and his claim that his agency will advance freedom is really about advancing the freedom to pollute.

Some governors and other state officials seem more interested in protecting polluters than their own citizens just one of a host of reasons why the Environmental Protection Agency needs more resources, not less, argues Elliott Negin. (Image by AK Rockefeller/ flickr CC 2.0)

A version of this post originally appeared at The Huffington Post.

During his nationally televised speech before Congress last week, President Trump vowed to promote clean air and clean water.

BY Bill Moyers | January 31, 2017

Is that right, Mr. President? Then why is your administration proposing to slash as much as 25 percent of the Environmental Protection Agencys current budget and cut its staff by 20 percent? That would cripple environmental safeguards, jeopardize public health and put future generations at risk.

The EPA has made remarkable progress cleaning up air and water pollution since its inception in 1970, but there is still more work to do. In 2015 alone, polluters dumped more than 190 million tons of toxic chemicals into waterways nationwide; at least 5,000 community drinking-water systems violated federal lead regulations; and some 116 million Americans lived in counties with harmful levels of ozone or particle pollution, which have been linked to lung cancer, asthma, cardiovascular damage, reproductive problems and premature death.

If anything, the environmental challenges of today suggest that the EPA needs more money and staffing to carry out its congressionally mandated mission, especially since Congress has already reduced its budget between fiscal years 2010 and 2016 by 28 percent in real dollars to $8.14 billion, a paltry 0.2 percent of the projected $4 trillion fiscal year 2017 federal budget.

Can state environmental agencies really compensate for an eviscerated EPA? The experts say no.

For his part, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt doesnt seem particularly fazed by the prospect of his agency having to make do with lot less, claiming that state environmental agencies can pick up the slack. As he explained during his Senate confirmation hearing in mid-January, he believes state regulators oftentimes best understand the local needs and the uniqueness of our environmental challenges, and, as far as hes concerned, they should shoulder the primary responsibility for enforcing the law.

But can state environmental agencies really compensate for an eviscerated EPA?

The experts say no.

States Rely on EPA Assistance

If anyone understands the relationship between the EPA and state environmental agencies, its Carol Browner, who served as EPA administrator during the Clinton administration after running Floridas Department of Environmental Regulation. State agencies, she says, are simply not equipped to take on the burden of federal functions.

State agencies play an important role in protecting their citizens from dangerous pollution, she said. But they cant do the job alone. They rely on the EPAs expert analysis and support to set and enforce pollution standards. Many states would not have the resources to replace the EPA work on which they rely.

What does that mean in practice?

I put that question to Ellen Gilinsky, who spent the last six years as an EPA water program policy adviser. Before joining the EPA, she was director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Qualitys water program.

States totally depend on the grants they get under the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act [and other federal environmental laws], Gilinsky said. Fifty to 60 percent of the funds for the Virginia water program came from the EPA. If we had doubled our permit fees to help fund our water program, we still wouldnt have covered the cost. And if we had, the business community would not have appreciated higher permit fees.

The EPA provides more than just money. It provides supporting information, new technology evaluations, training materials and other expertise.

The EPA provides more than just money, she added. It provides supporting information, new technology evaluations, training materials and other expertise. The EPA water division, for example, offers a permit writing training course for state workers. EPA experts train them. States dont have the wherewithal to provide training.

Ken Kimmell, who ran the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (Mass DEP) before becoming president of the Union of Concerned Scientists in 2014, also stresses the importance of EPA technical assistance, as well as its state grants, which comprise a significant chunk of the agencys annual expenditures. In fiscal year 2016, those grants amounted to nearly 45 percent of the agencys budget.

Having served as a state environmental commissioner, I know from personal experience that state environmental agencies are already strapped, Kimmell wrote in a recent blog post. They typically lack the technical experts employed at the EPA, and stand in no position to take on additional enforcement responsibilities shed by the EPA.

Mass DEPs staff was cut nearly in half between 2002 and 2012 due to budget cuts, even as the agencys responsibilities grew, Kimmell continued. That occurred in a state well known for its strong commitment to environmental protection. As a result, my agency was forced to cut back on important and effective programs, such as water sampling to locate sources of bacteria that pollute rivers. If the EPAs budget is cut, it will mean even fewer resources for states, because states now receive a significant share of the EPAs budget to cover enforcement activities.

Massachusetts isnt the only state that has had to tighten its belt. Forty state environmental agencies have reduced staff in recent years, according to an October 2016 report by the Center for Public Integrity. Since 2007, staffing at environmental agencies in Illinois and Arizona dropped by more than a third, in New York by nearly a quarter and in Michigan and Florida by a fifth.

With state cutbacks like those, theres a clear need for more support from the EPA, not less. But EPAs staff has shrunk by 10 percent over the last decade, from 17,000 in 2007 to about 15,000 today, and President Trumps proposed budget would reduce it by another 20 percent, to about 12,000. It hasnt been that small since the mid-1980s. By comparison, nearly 100,000 people work at the Agriculture Department, nearly 47,000 are at the Commerce Department and nearly 78,000 are at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Pollution Ignores State Boundaries

Another reason why state environmental agencies depend on the EPA is because, as Delaware Sen. Tom Carper painstakingly explained during Pruitts confirmation hearing, pollution does not honor political boundaries.

Delaware, like many states on the East Coast, sits at the end of what is known as Americas tailpipe, Carper said. Ninety percent of the air pollution in Delaware comes from outside of the First State, from power plants hundreds of miles away in places like Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and across the Midwest. As governor of Delaware, if I had eliminated every source of air pollution within my state, stopped every combustion source and ordered every motor vehicle off the roads, Delaware would still have faced deadly doses of air pollution.

Corporations may own polluting facilities in several states or a facility that emits pollutants into several states, making it difficult for a lone state agency to police them.

Moreover, corporations may own polluting facilities in several states or a facility that emits pollutants into several states, making it difficult for a lone state agency to police them.

Electric utilities, oil refineries and retailers like Walmart are all national companies, said Eric Schaeffer, director of EPA enforcement from 1997 to 2002. Only the federal government can deal with them. Take a BP refinery [in Indiana or Ohio]. It is polluting in more than one state. When the EPA takes enforcement action against a refinery, Schaeffer explained, states could be assured that refineries in other states were being treated the same way for the same violations.

Meanwhile, Walmart the nations biggest retailer had a consistent pattern of stormwater violations in a number of states, said Schaeffer, now executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project. It makes sense to deal with the company nationally. Why leave underfunded state agencies to deal with [Walmart] when you have these violations across the country? If you leave it to state agencies, companies can evade prosecution in states that dont have the ability to enforce the law.

Schaeffer also pointed out that states have little incentive to take action against major polluters within their own borders if their emissions wind up somewhere else.

You wont see a state agency, say in Ohio, bring an enforcement action against a large coal-fired power plant, he explained. It is not just a job issue. The bulk of the pollution from the coal plant is likely going into Pennsylvania, so you wont see Ohio sue. Thats why, Schaeffer said, its a good thing to have the feds come in from the outside to enforce environmental laws. Having the EPA standing behind state environmental agencies gives them leverage to negotiate with violators. States can say to a polluter: Either deal with us or with the EPA.

State Environmental Agencies Under Siege

To make matters worse, some governors and other state officials seem more interested in protecting polluters than their own citizens.

Florida is a prime example. Over the last six years, Gov. Rick Scott has ripped the states Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to shreds. When he ran for reelection in 2014, the Tampa Bay Times ran a scathing editorial calling his first term an environmental disaster.

Scott has bulldozed a record of environmental protection that his Republican and Democratic predecessors spent decades building, the editorial said. He weakened the enforcement of environmental laws and cut support for clean water, conservation and other programs. He simultaneously made it easier for the biggest polluters and private industries to degrade the states natural resources.

BY John Light | February 3, 2017

But Scott did much more than just weaken enforcement. He virtually eliminated it. In 2015, the Florida DEP opened 81 percent fewer enforcement cases than in 2010, according to an analysis of state records by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Case outcomes, meanwhile, were worse than in nearly any previous year. The Florida DEP collected the lowest number of fines in 28 years, PEER found and assessed no penalties in a third of the cases.

In Florida, polluters do not need a Get Out of Jail Free card because few pay any fine and virtually none risk going to jail no matter how egregious the environmental offense, Florida PEER Director Jerry Phillips, a former Florida DEP enforcement attorney who conducted the analysis, said in a press release. Under Gov. Scott, DEP staff are strongly discouraged from bringing enforcement actions and the plummeting numbers reflect it.

Despite the DEPs sorry record under Scott, a freshman US Representative from Florida, Matt Gaetz, introduced legislation in early February that would eliminate the EPA by the end of 2018 and devolve its responsibilities to state environmental agencies. Like Pruitt, Gaetz maintains that states and local communities are best positioned to responsibly regulate the environmental assets within their jurisdictions.

Of all people, Gaetz should know better. Before winning a seat in the US House of Representatives last fall, he served in the Florida Legislature, taking office in 2011 the same year Scott became governor. He had a ringside seat when Scott took an ax to the DEP.

Pruitt also should be well aware that a governor or other state officials, for that matter can run roughshod over environmental protections. After all, he did it himself.

Pruitt also should be well aware that a governor or other state officials, for that matter can run roughshod over environmental protections. After all, he did it himself.

As Oklahomas attorney general between 2011 and 2016, Pruitt dismantled his offices Environmental Protection Unit, halted efforts to reduce poultry manure in Oklahoma waterways, and sued the EPA 14 times to block stronger air, water and climate safeguards, including standards that would reduce regional smog and airborne mercury pollution.

Pruitt also stood idly by while hydraulic fracturing made Oklahoma the most earthquake-ravaged state in the country. Although Pruitts office does not regulate oil and gas development, he could have intervened to protect residents, for example, when their insurance claims were denied. And like Pennsylvanias attorney general, he could have investigated and prosecuted frackers for violating environmental laws and polluting the water supply. He did nothing.

Florida and Oklahoma are hardly exceptions. A number of other states have caved to polluters at the expense of public health. For example:

Americans Want a Strong EPA

Recent polls indicate that a majority of Americans support a robust federal environmental regulator and stricter environmental safeguards. According to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion survey released in mid-January, more than 60 percent of Americans want the EPAs authority preserved or strengthened under the Trump administration. Interestingly, nearly half of the respondents who identified themselves as Republican 47 percent agreed that the EPA should either remain the same or be strengthened or expanded. Meanwhile, a December 2016 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center found that 59 percent of Americans believe stronger environmental regulations are worth the cost.

Pruitt seemed to acknowledge that Americans want a clean environment during his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference late last month. People across the country, he said, care about the air they breathe and they care about the water they drink and we are going to be partners with these individuals, not adversaries. He then went on to say: We are going to restore power back to the people. We are going to recognize the regulatory uncertainty and the regulatory state needs to be reined in, were going to make sure states are recognized for the authority they have, and we are going to do the work thats important to advance freedom and liberty for the future.

The administrations plan to wreck the EPA, however, belies Pruitts populist rhetoric. Reading between the lines, Pruitts vow to empower the people really means empowering corporations, which, after all, are considered people under the law. And when he says his agency is going to advance freedom, hes really talking about advancing the freedom to pollute.

How patriotic.

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Gutting EPA's Budget and Staff Would Endanger the Health of Millions of Americans - BillMoyers.com