Environmentalists and Oil Companies Set To Battle Over Tax

"Environmentalists and oil companies are about to go to war over a tax proposal in Olympia. At issue is a bill to triple Washington's hazardous substance tax. It's levied on petroleum products - like crude oil - and other toxics when they come into Washington. KPLU's Austin Jenkins has this preview.

First a bit of history. In the late 1980s, Washington voters approved a seven-tenths-of-one-percent tax on hazardous substances. The oil industry pays the bulk of the tax. It's supposed to fund hazardous waste clean-up. More than twenty years later, environmentalists and others want to make it a two-percent tax and dedicate the money to addressing stormwater run-off. Environmental lobbyist Clifford Traisman calls it the state's number one source of water pollution from Puget Sound to the Spokane River..."