User:Bates2092021/sandbox

Heading text

On May 2nd, 2012, a “rain tax” was signed into place in the state of Maryland. In reality, this tax is a stormwater fee that was passed in response to a 2010 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) goal to decrease pollution levels in the Chesapeake Bay. Stormwater fees are used to construct strategies to limit and filter pollutants from runoff in order to provide cleaner water, reduce flooding and protect infrastructure.This tax, previously known as the Stormwater Management-Watershed and Restoration Program, is a fee for impervious surfaces such as roofs, garages, or sidewalks that could cause huge drainage issues and water contamination on property owned by individuals. The tax intended to ​​raise revenue for cleanup projects and create a financial incentive to limit the construction of new impermeable surfaces and instead encourage cities to replace impervious surfaces with permeable surfaces. Local counties are responsible for setting the cost of the tax so the cost for individuals and businesses varies greatly county to county and within counties. This created conflict among Maryland counties. Chesapeake Bay suffers from pollution and overfishing; nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment plague the Bay. Too much sediment makes the water cloudy so sunlight struggles to reach the aquatic plants and species in the bottom of the water will be smothered by the sediment as it settles. Nitrogen and phosphorus, specifically, create high levels of algae that block sunlight from reaching underwater plants. Republican politicians such as Larry Hogan heavily criticized this tax as they believe families and business owners should not be in a place where they have to pay for a multi-billion dollar EPA program. Maryland residents also critiqued the fundamental detail that Maryland was the only state bordering the Chesapeake Bay that had to pay this tax. This is an example of Pigovian tax that is being used to correct an environmental externality. Pigovian taxes are often criticized as they take the cost of the destruction of Chesapeake Bay and Maryland’s impermeable surfaces off of society and the state and onto individuals. In 2015, the Maryland Senate unanimously voted to ease the “rain tax” and gave each jurisdiction the ability to choose whether or not they want to impose the fee.