From State Sen. J.B. Jennings:
Governor Larry Hogan Introduces Legislation To Repeal “Rain Tax”
Governor Larry Hogan held a press conference on Tuesday announcing his legislation to repeal the “rain tax”. This repeal will instead give local governments control of how they will pay for the stormwater management mandate.
Maryland’s legislature passed the rain tax in 2012 in order to fund a federally mandated stormwater management program. The program aims to curb the environmental impact of stormwater runoff, which carries contaminants such as motor oil and pesticides into the Bay and its tributaries. The goal is to reduce pollution enough by 2025 so that the Chesapeake Bay can be taken off the nation’s list of impaired waterways. Maryland’s share of the bill to fund these remediation projects will cost the state upwards of $14.8 billion.
Maryland has taken a page from the federal government’s playbook and forced this unfunded mandate on the state’s ten most populous jurisdictions, including Baltimore and Harford Counties. To pay for the projects, the designated jurisdictions must impose a tax based on the square footage of residential and commercial land covered by impervious surfaces, which cannot absorb water. Impervious surfaces include parking lots, roofs, driveways, and pavements. Arguments were made to give the local governments the option to choose how they would pay for this fee; however, in the end the legislature voted to make the rain tax mandatory.
As long as the federal stormwater mandates exist, the states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed will have to pay for them or face massive fines for violating the Clean Water Act. The Governor intends to repeal the state requirement that the affected jurisdictions tax their citizens to raise the revenue and instead give them the freedom to develop their own plan for funding the projects. Even so, the Governor alone cannot relieve the counties of their responsibility under federal law, to pay for these stormwater management projects.
Carroll and Frederick Counties refused to impose a rain tax and have come up with a plan to fund the mandate from within their counties’ existing budget structure. Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, once an enthusiastic supporter of the rain tax, recently announced that he wants to cut the tax by one-third. Under his plan, the tax on a single-family home would be lowered from $69 to $26 annually, townhouse owners would see an annual decrease from $21 to $14, and the tax rate for business owners per 2,000 square feet of impervious surfaces would drop from $69 to $46. Harford County officials are also considering meeting stormwater goals by dedicating existing revenue to pay for the projects.
Maryland is the only state in the Chesapeake Bay watershed that decided to tax impervious surfaces to raise the necessary revenue for the federal stormwater management projects. This rain tax has damaged the economy because it forces businesses to pay yet another tax—one that, in some cases, is larger even than their property taxes. The rain tax has the potential to transform Maryland from a business-unfriendly state to a business-hostile state. Therefore, I support the effort to allow each jurisdiction to decide for itself a plan to raise the funds for stormwater management projects and do their share to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.
Please do not hesitate to contact me on this or any other issue of concern to you. Remember, your input is important to me. I encourage and welcome your input.
Best regards,
Senator J.B. Jennings
Does anyone know of how many funds/added taxes go to “Save the Bay?” Flush tax (doubled), vehicle license plates (extra cost), water/sewer treatment plants added charges to update plants. What others am I missing? This has gotten way out of control. Generally Democrats think throwing more money at a problem will solve/buy the wanted/expected results. SMH.
Are you against cleaning up the County’s mess, have doubts in the County’s ability to do so effectively, or simply don’t want to pay for it?
I’ve encountered many who feel simply that we should leave this for our children to do.
Capital Gazette 1 Oct 2013: ” At least $15 billion” and “But when asked recently how much has been spent since plans were hatched to save the bay, a range of experts and officials said they just don’t know. That includes the head of the Chesapeake Bay Program, now coordinating federal work on the bay.” – See more at: http://www.capitalgazette.com/cg-following-the-money-spent-on-chesapeake-bay-an-elusive-pursuit-20140730,0,3051073.story#sthash.vFh2NzF8.dpuf
Ok. I can go with a lack of trust in the Glassman administration, as it is the one overseeing local stormwater remediation efforts.
Please correct me if I am wrong. I believe it was “OWE’Malley” who bowed to OWE’Bama and chose to pass this on to a “select” few to pick up the tab. $15b (?) spent? Sounds like a Democrat process to me. Mr. Glassman is trying to empty a bucket of poop from OWE’Malley. I may be biased though. I like to spend my “own” money on my “own” choices and donate to the causes “I” find notable and worthy with NO interference from the government. Their track record of spending “my money” is in horrible. My opinion only.
Glassman has already decided to spend our local tax money on our local stormwater problems, the ones we are legally and ethically obligated to correct.
That said, I can understand the allure of having our kids take care of this problem for us.
We can’t clean up the bay as long as you have more and more people using it. By that I mean more power boats, more shoreline development and more people in general. More people equals more pollution. Sorry but it’s a cold hard fact of life.
I can see the advantages of letting the whole thing rot away. We can always import our seafood from other areas, so, at the end of the day, I can agree and say it is best to do nothing.
Import our seafood? If you eat anything that comes out of the polluted waters of the bay you should have your head examined. Ah yes the patapsco crabs full of dioxin passed off as the Wye rivers finest. Or how about rockfish with bleeding sores and tumors? A little old bay and bread crumbs yum.
You’ve won me over. I get it. Abandon the Bay and get those pesky watermen into different jobs. Not a problem.
For every person who thinks the “rain tax” is a tax on rain, there is a lesson: Propaganda works! For the rest of us, it is only one more reason to be disgusted at politicans trying to mislead us.
At least this article was written in a way that a careful reader will understand that this is a tax on pollution, not a tax on rain.
No doubt. The only problem I have with the “rain tax” is assurance and safeguards to ensure the money is actually spent on bay restoration and rehabilitation. As a very conservative republican I figure there’s lots of ways to use my tax money but can’t imagine it being spent on anything much more important than the health of the bay and efforts to ensure our kids get to fish, swim and enjoy pristine and native habitats as they should exist in nature. There are real environmental costs to paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. The Chesapeake is a treasure.
We will be taxed one way or another. If it is not the state, it will be the county. It could come out of our property tax as well. This is just a shell game.