Thanks for your optimistic assessment.
I believe that the key to success in a venture like this will be
identifying key individuals and organizations that will benefit from the
changes, and building a coalition of powerful interests on our side. As we
demonstrated in San Jose, we can designs taxes and fees to provide economic
incentives for waste generators, haulers, recyclers and landfill operators
to economically benefit by doing the right thing (diverting waste from
landfill). The only question in my mind is who wants to follow San Jose's
lead and when? We should start at the local level, then at the state
level, then at the national level on these issues.
I look forward to working with those who want to move in this direction.
Gary Liss
916-652-7850
Fax: 916-652-0485
****************************************************************************
******************
At 09:09 AM 8/3/99 -0500, RecycleWorlds wrote:
>Gary asked for comment on the Hamond article proposing to use taxes to
>guide personal decisions into more constructive paths.
>
>Certainly, in theory, this could work substantially better than direct
>regulatory approaches.
>
>Unfortunately, my experience with the political arena indicates that
>economists who LOVE this approach should not be allowed out of their ivory
>towers (Jeff Morris and I excepted, of course), even to go to the bathroom.
>
>That's because tax laws are written by the tax committees, late at night,
>in the backroom, out of the public's sights in complex tomes that no one
>can make any sense of. Because the stakes of their decisions are so HUGE,
>that is where 90% (or whatever) of the corporate contributions are focused,
>making just about every person on those committees CORRUPT, with one or two
>noble exceptions.
>
>Those committees, then, are the one place where we have the very LEAST
>influence.
>
>Sure regulations have been correctly branded as command and control and
>have all of the limitations that attach to them.
>
>But at least their visible and so much more impactable by the public than
>tax laws.
>____________________________________
>Peter Anderson
>RecycleWorlds Consulting
>4513 Vernon Blvd. Ste. 15
>Madison, WI 53705-4964
>Phone:(608) 231-1100/Fax: (608) 233-0011
>E-mail:recycle@msn.fullfeed.com
>
>*****************************************************
> To post to the greenyes list, send a letter to:
>greenyes@earthsystems.org
> To unsubscribe, send a message to:
>greenyes-request@earthsystems.org with the subject
>unsubscribe. If you have any problems, please
>write to www@earthsystems.org.
> GreenYes is archived on the GrassRoots Recycling
>Network web site: http://www.grrn.org
>******************************************************
>
>