Here are some examples of how it could work. Tax pollution and scrap business taxes More than 3.5 billion pounds of harmful pollutants 100 million pounds of them highly toxic flow into the Northwest's environment each year. Lifelong exposure to these pollutants kills thousands of Washingtonians. Where pollution comes from a factory, we can tax every pound of pollution and toxic waste, piggy-backing on existing regulatory fees. But pollution that does not come from factories is a growing menace.
Pollution washing off farms is the biggest threat to water quality in our rivers.
Motor vehicles cause about half of urban air pollution, and the dirtiest fifth of vehicles spew four-fifths of the smog. To tame these nonfactory polluters, we can tax agrochemical sales and, at our regular vehicle inspections, tailpipe emissions. Taxing tailpipe emissions would help to reduce the smog and improve the view. Tax resource consumption and slash the sales tax To encourage conservation and recycling and to reflect the environmental impacts of resource extraction governments could tax water, hydropower, timber, and minerals. Taxing diversions of water from rivers would stem the enormous inefficiency in irrigation water use in the Northwest and safeguard life in our rivers.