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The Legislature has gone on record in support of federal legislation to enact a federal carbon tax, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas, including carbon dioxide, said to be a major contributor to global warming.  The vote was 10-4, with Legislators Frank Proto, Greg Stevenson, Mike Hattery and Mike Sigler voting no; Legislator Tyke Randall was absent. 

The county’s Environmental Management Council had recommended county support for the carbon tax.  The action, advanced by Legislator Carol Chock, calls for the carbon tax to be  levied on importers and domestic extractors and refiners of fossil fuels, “with revenues directed to tax relief for low- and moderate-income households and financial support for conservation and sustainable energy programs, with public monitoring to ensure compliance.” 

But legislators, also by a 10-4 vote, struck a provision that would have also voiced the Legislature’s support, with conditions, for the so-called “cap-and-auction” approach, a s a next-best alternative if a carbon tax fails to pass at the Federal level.

Copies of the resolution will be forwarded to the County’s state and federal representatives and the appropriate Senate and House committees.

Legislator Greg Stevenson called it a complex issue that should have had committee review and said his constituents hadn’t been in touch to ask for any new taxes.  Legislator Mike Hattery added that he didn’t like to “clog the legislative process with everyone’s federal issues.”  But Legislator Martha Robertson said the issue is one the County needs to lead on, one which is “affecting everything we do.”


Lansing Legislator Mike Sigler sees the proposed tax as an affront to residents who are suffering from already high gas prices.  “It’s hard to believe that at a time when Tompkins County residents are paying a record or near record for gas and heating oil, when they’re struggling to make ends meet and often finding those ends far apart, that the Tompkins County Legislature would call for higher taxes on oil and natural gas,” said Mike Sigler, Tompkins County GOP Chairman and one of four county legislators who voted against the new tax.  “The federal government already taxes gas.  If the Democrats who control Congress were serious about carbon emissions as they say, they could always put a portion of that tax toward carbon dioxide sequestration efforts.  Even though a carbon tax was better than cap and trade, there was so much wrong with this resolution there was more than one reason to vote against it and it would be leading the US down the wrong path."

The resolution calls for using the tax money to help low income people and underwrite the development of alternative energy.  “Let’s face it, the US, China, India, the world, will not be moving off oil for the next 20 to 30 years,” says Sigler.  “Alternative energy is coming online, but we’ll still be on oil and if you believe carbon emissions is a problem, you better start putting money toward sequestering that CO2.  The enemy is not oil.  It’s the CO2 from that oil that’s the problem many people are concerned about.  Let’s attack the right problem.”

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