Gregoire considering carbon cap-and-trade

A climate change panel appointed by Gov. Chris Gregoire is leaning toward recommending that Washington become part of a regional cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions rather than impose a tax on polluters who emit carbon dioxide.

The panel, which will meet Tuesday in Seattle to unveil its initial recommendations, also wants local governments to analyze how new projects would contribute to Washington’s greenhouse gas emissions under the State Environmental Policy Act.

The Climate Action Team’s most dramatic initiatives will wait for the 2009 legislative session, said Jay Manning, director of the Washington Department of Ecology and co-chairman of the climate team. That’s because a separate effort of which the state is a part, the Western Climate Initiative, will announce its own strategy for dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emission reductions next August. Six states and three Canadian provinces are part of that regional effort.

A cap-and-trade system that allows polluting industries to buy credits from clean industries within an overall carbon emission cap will be as effective as a tax on carbon emissions and will give industries and other carbon emitters more flexibility, Manning said.

– McClatchy

Lewiston

Commission to handle vehicle tax disputes

The Idaho State Tax Commission says it plans to take over investigations of suspicious bills of sale for used cars, freeing county assessors from the unwelcome task of questioning their neighbors’ ethics.

“It’s really a change of how much we’re asking the counties to take on in the process,” Dan John, the commission’s tax policy manager, told the Lewiston Tribune.

People making private deals on cars, recreational vehicles and boats sometimes understate the purchase price to avoid paying sales tax.

Buyers pay sales tax to the assessor’s office, which is $6 per $100 in Idaho. Then, the Idaho Transportation Department issues the title.

County assessors will no longer be asked to investigate sale prices that raise eyebrows at the Transportation Department or Tax Commission.

“We don’t have the training. We don’t have the time,” Nez Perce County Assessor Dan Anderson said.

– Associated Press

Rexburg, Idaho

TV show to use town as backdrop

The sleepy eastern Idaho town of Rexburg is making a pitch to Hollywood.

Rexburg native Troy Hinckley says his Out of Time productions is using his hometown as backdrop for a television series in the making.

Hinckley says his company will shoot at least seven episodes, with a budget for more than 200 hours of extras. He says he hopes the unnamed series will catch on and distributors will buy 13 episodes.

The company says it will be calling high school students and people interested in theater and acting to fill the extra roles.

– Associated Press