THE SENATE                           S.C.R. NO.            102
TWENTIETH LEGISLATURE, 1999                                
STATE OF HAWAII                                            
                                                             
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                    SENATE  CONCURRENT
                        RESOLUTION

  REQUESTING THE APPOINTMENT OF A STUDY GROUP TO RECOMMEND
    ENVIRONMENTAL TAXES AND REDUCTION OF OTHER TAXES.



 1          WHEREAS, with all the interest in Hawaii in reducing
 2   various taxes and restructuring the Hawaii tax system, thought
 3   should be given to changing the incident of taxes; and
 4   
 5          WHEREAS, recent working papers published by Redefining
 6   Progress, a public policy organization, discussed the
 7   possibilities of shifting taxes to influence environmental
 8   decisions; and
 9   
10          WHEREAS, these papers--"A Conceptual Framework To
11   Compare Environmental Tax Shift Policies", by Don Fullerton,
12   and "A Distributional Analysis Of An Environmental Tax Shift"
13   by Gilbert E. Metcalf--discuss the possibilities of imposing
14   taxes on pollution or similar environmental degradation in
15   return for reducing taxes on labor, such as income taxes, or to
16   encourage investment in nonpolluting or nondegrading
17   activities; and
18   
19          WHEREAS, these environmental taxes may be placed on such
20   activities by themselves or in conjunction with pollution
21   permits, regulatory activity, or any combination of these
22   incentives; and
23   
24          WHEREAS, in imposing these environmental taxes, the
25   authors point out a number of considerations such as economic
26   efficiency, administrative efficiency, ease of monitoring and
27   enforcement, equity and distributional effects, and other
28   distortions that may occur in the transition to a new tax or
29   tax system; and
30   
31          WHEREAS, the idea of shifting the burden of taxes from
32   our citizens to environmentally degrading activities is
33   appealing, but the problems raised by the working papers must
34   be studied and addressed in implementing such a tax shift; now,
35   therefore,
36   
37        BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twentieth Legislature
38   of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 1999, the House of

 
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                                  S.C.R. NO.            102
                                                        
                                                        

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