Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy is poised to sign a "rain tax" bill passed by the state legislature Jan. 31 — and Republicans and lots of taxpayers are howling with rage.
"Every time you think there's nothing left to tax, we come up with something else," Assemblyman Hal Wirths (R-Morris-Sussex) exploded during a debate on the measure.
"It's just never-ending down here."
The law allows each of the state's 565 municipalities to set up its own public stormwater utility. The new bureaucracies will build and manage sewer systems to treat pollutant-filled stormwater runoff.
https://nypost.com/2019/02/09/new-jersey-wants-to-tax-the-rain/
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday February 11 2019, @05:07AM (12 children)
This is about taxing businesses that lay down asphalt parking lots so large that they overload the sewage system. In other words, it's about taxing companies that externalize the problem they create onto the taxpaying community. The tax sounds fair to me.
(Score: 2) by qzm on Monday February 11 2019, @05:27AM (3 children)
And yet it will mostly be applied to private individuals, while those large business will be exempt because 'job creation'.
I guess you find that fair?
(Score: 5, Touché) by sjames on Monday February 11 2019, @05:34AM (2 children)
So don't grant the breaks.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Monday February 11 2019, @10:52AM (1 child)
Aha, but is there a "no breaks" clause in the bill? ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @07:37PM
We seem to be careening down the path of no return ... so I'm pretty sure we're not using any breaks.
(Score: 4, Touché) by sjames on Monday February 11 2019, @05:31AM (3 children)
This. Businesses that absolutely expect me to pay them if I want to take something from their store figure they don't need to pay if they damage the environment, film at 11.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday February 11 2019, @06:00AM (2 children)
It's not even about the environment (for people who don't care about it): asphalted surfaces are known to increase the severity of floods that cost millions in property damage and inflict untold misery onto homeowners.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday February 11 2019, @07:22AM (1 child)
There's that too. Asphalt doesn't absorb much rain water.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @07:40PM
Now, come on. We have so many potholes in our roads, parking lots and driveways that we collect untold gallons of water.
(Score: 5, Informative) by driverless on Monday February 11 2019, @06:38AM (3 children)
Exactly. It's not taxing rain, its taxing "pollutant-filled stormwater runoff". Sounds perfectly reasonable to me, I shouldn't be subsidising someone else's effluent flow.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Monday February 11 2019, @07:29AM (1 child)
Unfortunately our politicians have increased the volume of their effluent flows...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @07:30PM
So you can start taxing those politicians! Remember, NO BREAKS.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday February 11 2019, @05:03PM
Exactly. It's not taxing rain, its taxing "pollutant-filled stormwater runoff". Sounds perfectly reasonable to me, I shouldn't be subsidising someone else's effluent flow.
Right, those stormwater systems are not free. Who exactly do they think should pay for them.
Oh, nevermind, conservative math... Tax and spend is bad so let's just put it on the credit card.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:42AM (7 children)
You weren't allowed to use rain barrels because it was feared it would deplete the groundwater. That law was rescinded.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:54AM
Multiple states have had issues with this.
https://www.sightline.org/2011/07/14/legalizing-it-your-rain-barrel/ [sightline.org]
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/us/29rain.html [nytimes.com]
On the opposite end of the spectrum, you can get a rebate instead of a tax or ban:
https://doee.dc.gov/service/rain-barrel-rebates [dc.gov]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 11 2019, @06:58AM (5 children)
AC already answered you, and provided links. My take on all of this is corruption and greed. Nowhere in the eastern US do people claim these "water rights". So far as I am aware, no place in the world does so. Maybe some desert countries (think Saharan countries) or maybe Australia. It seems a unique thing to the western US. The entire history of the land barons in the west is nothing but corruption. Tied closely to all the other land barons, were the railroads. The SOB's used every trick in the book, and then wrote their own books, to cheat all the REST of our ancestors out of land, water, mineral rights, grazing rights, and any other rights that go with being human. Try a search on your favorite search engine for "land barons of the old west". I hit Duckduckgo with it, and there are so many pertinent and interesting hits, I don't know which one to offer you.
Even today, it seems that only 25 individuals own 1% of the land in the US. Businessinsider doesn't want to allow me to read that story, because I run adblockers. https://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-landowners-america [businessinsider.com] (the blurb on the search page suggests that these are 25 individuals, as opposed to corporate entities, such as Weyerhauser)
Imagine, if you will, some wealthy royal ass in old England, trying to lay claim to all the water on, above, or below the ground. When I try to imagine it, I see the church shooting him down, as well as the commoners. Water is water - it belongs to whoever it falls on. The Bible asks, "Does it not rain on the rich man and the poor man alike?"
But, these very special SOB's thought they could lay claim to every drop of moisture falling on a county, or a region, or within a river drainage. And, they had enough money to bribe lawmakers.
None of that shit makes the least bit of sense to any rational human being with any interest in justice. No one has "water rights" to my yard, or yours. My land has first rights to any water falling here, or even flowing across it. Any excess flows downhill, and people downhill can have all they want of that water. Ditto every person in the world. The entire body of "water rights" laws is a mockery of justice. If there are any exceptions to that statement, those would involve cities and states building reservoirs to supply drinking water for it's population. That, of course, falls under "eminent domain".
The whole concept of water rights disgusts me.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @08:33AM (4 children)
there are upstream vs downstream arguments of river water all over the world. Israel is quite touchy about the Jordanian River water flow, for example. The US & Canada periodically have to negotiate about the Canadian dams on the upper Columbia River in British Columbia. And so on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @11:16AM (3 children)
https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/dams-china-turn-mekong-river-discord [yale.edu]
Time to kick China out of Tibet.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 11 2019, @12:27PM (2 children)
There's a lot to be said for and against dams. On the plus side, they do tend to tame the rivers. Trap the floodwater, as much as possible, then release it throughout the dry season. Those interested in the water for irrigation should appreciate that benefit.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @01:31PM (1 child)
I doubt the people at the bottom of that river appreciate their subsistence livelihood being drained away
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday February 11 2019, @05:12PM
That argument can be handled by treaties. (Treaties, of course, are frequently broken. Oh well.)
The thing that's harder to handle is the changes it causes in the environment. Some of the changes are beneficial to people, but often only to *some* people. And locally adapted plants and animals frequently suffer tremendously, leaving the area vulnerable to invasive species.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Nuke on Monday February 11 2019, @12:01PM (2 children)
In the UK the local tax on your house or property includes a component for dealing with rainwater - including maintenance of rivers. It is clearly listed in your annual property tax statement, and no-one much has issues with the principle of it. The bigger the house or business the more tax they pay, although ground area is not a direct factor.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mobydisk on Monday February 11 2019, @02:41PM (1 child)
Other US states have passed this same tax and it works similarly to what you describe. It's in your property tax. Each municipality can decide how to calculate the fee: using either a flat rate or a rate based on impermeable surfaces. Some very rural counties use a different calculation for farms, but as I am not a farmer I don't know what it is. It's a really simple straightforward tax that directly measures the thing it is trying to fix - it's really strange that every time it comes up someone labels it a "rain tax" to try and shoot it down. We could play the same game with any tax. Is an income tax a "sweat tax" or is a tax on carbon release a "dirt tax?" Is the sewer tax a "poop tax?" How dare they tax my poop and sweat! Those evil fat cats in Washington hate hate blah!
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday February 11 2019, @07:36PM
Then measures like this might be seen as excuses to bend provisions of the several states' constitutions that limit property tax.
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Monday February 11 2019, @12:09PM
Richmond, VA already taxes you for storm runoff [richmondgov.com].
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Monday February 11 2019, @05:31PM
From the article:
Doesn't seem totally out of whack to me.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"