Manchin, Rockefeller, and Boxer Introduce the Chemical Safety and Drinking Water Protection Act

I have my fingers crossed on this one. In the wake of the chemical spill in West Virginia's Elk River that left 300,000 without drinking water, Senators Joe Manchin, Jay Rockefeller, and Barbara Boxer introduced the Chemical Safety and Drinking Water Protection Act, which would, once enacted provide for the following:

1. Require regular state inspections of above-ground chemical storage facilities.
2. Require industry to develop state-approved emergency response plans that meet at least minimum guidelines.
3. Allow states to recoup costs incurred from responding to emergencies.
4. Ensure that drinking water systems have the tools and information to respond to emergencies.

This is a good move on the part of West Virginia’s senators and my senator here in California. I’m pretty certain that the GOP controlled House will delay, water down, or kill this legislation—I can hear their usual canards already: “overregulation,” “jobs killing,” “jobs or the environment,” “war on coal,” and a few others—before president Obama can sign it into law. But it is still a development that gives me hope for West Virginia and West Virginians.

Safe drinking water is a right.

Barbara Boxer Introduces Carbon Tax Legislation

Cap and trade has been the more business friendly and, by that default, the most politically feasible manner in which to begin controlling carbon emissions. But Senator Barbara Boxer of California has introduced a carbon tax bill, which is far more direct and, if implemented, more likely to achieve the desired results of reducing our country’s carbon emissions.

            Under her bill, companies would pay $20 per ton of carbon or methane emitted, with the tax increasing by 5.6 percent each year for the next ten years. Money from the tax would go towards energy research and weatherizing homes.

            Manik Roy, of the non-partisan Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, says that the bill has a snowball’s chance in a global warming world of passing as stand-alone legislation, but Democrats might be able to get the bill passed by attaching the bill to business friendly legislation that lowers some taxes.

            Hats off to Barbara Boxer. Although it is an uphill battle, I believe that within the next few years a national carbon tax will become part of our country’s energy policy.