Frank Chopp is terrible. All he cares about is keeping his Speakership, so he panders to moderates.

CHOPPED.

Why, oh why do voters in the 43rd District keep electing that useless asshole? Chopp is completely spineless. He's repeatedly opposed an income tax. I'm not the least bit surprised he's trying to dodge a carbon tax.

@2-moderates would likely support a reasonable gas tax. He's pandering to the deplorables with this.

A reasonable gas tax would be a percentage of sale price unlike the fixed rate per gallon that the legislature revisits every few years. Additional regressive taxes shouldn't be considered as long as we're still (by far!) the most regressive taxation state in the nation.

Isn’t a carbon tax with 67 exemptions for the industries most responsible for pollution just a modest gas tax?

In the rush to get something passed so legislators can all congratulate themseves let’s not lose sight of the main goal of this policy: speeding the transition away from dirty fossil fuels to a clean energy economy. Polluting industry should be the one bearing that cost, not just WA families.

Let’s let voters decide for themselves in November.

Too bad Inslee can't find someone more palatable than Teresa Heinz's husband.

@8-

Industry is going to pass on the cost through the price of their products, however we set it up. Any increased cost in energy that it takes to make Product X will be passed to the consumer (which is exactly as it should be - it may be that products that require excessive pollution should be made in smaller quantities). A carbon tax is about making people (including those hard-working families that the Dems and GOP both love pandering to) pay the actual costs of what they are doing. That is the only way that people will start to make rational decisions that don't trash the planet.

As for a gas tax hurting families, I'll be concerned about that when i see said families stop buying the Tahoes, Suburbans, full-size pickups, etc. in favor of smaller cars The rest of the world (even families) seem to get by with small cars. Peoples' behavior does change in response to the market. I saw the mix of cars on the road change dramatically when gas prices first hit $4. Apparently people were leaving the giant cars at home and using the small ones. It could happen again.

And in case anyone is going to argue that working/poor people can't afford new cars, remember that an old crappy small car is just as easy to buy as an old crappy big one. No sympathy for anyone who is driving a gas guzzler just because they feel like it. And if you say that you need something large to haul your 6 kids around, your history of climate crimes goes FAR beyond what you drive.

This debate is a perfect example of the absolute necessity of a solution at the Federal level. We need a predictably rising, revenue neutral, fully refunded carbon fee, dividend and border carbon duty. (CitizensClimateLobby.org) States can't do it themselves. The dividend is accountable, transparent and offsets 70% of the population for rising costs. The affluent, with higher carbon footprints, pay their fare share. Industry gets the message: aggregate consumer demand for less expensive, lower carbon products. Our trading partners (just about everyone) must do their own pricing or pay us at the border.

The legislature should follow California's AJR43 and recommend that the Feds do this at once.

As important, our children will appreciate that their parents are finally serious about not robbing them of their future. We'd better hurry.