Montgomery County's Carbon Tax

It's Monday morning at 1 a.m. but after working all week and resting yesterday, I finally get a chance to let people know how happy I am that Montgomery County, MD passed a new Carbon Tax, the first of its kind in the US.

I'm a resident of Montgomery County and I am proud to be part of this historic moment. The bill basically taxes stationary emitters in Montgomery County that release more than one million tons of co2 into the atmosphere annually. Currently, there is only one such emitter- a coal plant owned by Mirant Corporation.

All the best green blogs have written about this new tax and what it could lead to. There was even a little humorous blog I encountered that taunted the Tea Party protests of the legislation.

Even Al Gore himself wrote a his last blog entry about this historic piece of legislation.

In addition to the tax on Mirant, the Washington Business Journal reports that "the new law raises the county’s taxes by 85 percent on energy use...the taxes raise $132 million for the county, and the business community carries 73 percent of those payments, versus 27 percent on residents."

Hooray for the environment and hooray for Montgomery County. Hopefully the rest of the country will follow-suit.