THE SENATE                           S.C.R. NO.            154
TWENTIETH LEGISLATURE, 1999                                
STATE OF HAWAII                                            
                                                             
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                    SENATE  CONCURRENT
                        RESOLUTION

  REQUESTING THE APPOINTMENT OF A STUDY GROUP TO CONSIDER
    ENVIRONMENTAL TAX SHIFT POLICIES.



 1          WHEREAS, with all the interest in Hawaii in reducing
 2   various taxes and restructuring the Hawaii tax system; and
 3   
 4          WHEREAS, recent working papers published by Redefining
 5   Progress, a public policy organization, discussed the
 6   possibilities of shifting taxes to influence environmental
 7   decisions; and
 8   
 9          WHEREAS, these papers--"A Conceptual Framework To
10   Compare Environmental Tax Shift Policies", by Don Fullerton,
11   and "A Distributional Analysis Of An Environmental Tax Shift"
12   by Gilbert E. Metcalf--discuss the possibilities of imposing
13   taxes on pollution or similar environmental degradation in
14   return for reducing taxes on labor, such as income taxes, or to
15   encourage investment in nonpolluting or nondegrading
16   activities; and
17   
18          WHEREAS, these environmental taxes may be placed on such
19   activities by themselves or in conjunction with pollution
20   permits, regulatory activity, or any combination of these
21   incentives; and
22   
23          WHEREAS, in imposing these environmental taxes, the
24   authors point out a number of considerations such as economic
25   efficiency, administrative efficiency, ease of monitoring and
26   enforcement, equity and distributional effects, and other
27   distortions that may occur in the transition to a new tax or
28   tax system; and
29   
30          WHEREAS, the idea of shifting the burden of taxes from
31   our citizens to environmentally degrading activities is
32   appealing, but the problems raised by the working papers must
33   be studied and addressed in implementing such a tax shift; now,
34   therefore,
35   
36        BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twentieth Legislature

 
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                                  S.C.R. NO.            154
                                                        
                                                        

 
 1   of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 1999, the House of
 2   Representatives concurring, that the governor appoint a study
 3   group to consider the possibilities raised in the working
 4   papers and to recommend to the legislature the imposition of
 5   environmental taxes and the reduction of other taxes to be
 6   offset by the income from the new environmental taxes; and
 7   
 8        BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the study group submit its
 9   recommendations to the legislature twenty days before the
10   regular session of 2000; and
11   
12        BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a certified copy of this
13   Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Governor
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17                         OFFERED BY:  ____________________________