Zero Motorcycles has just announced that they are the first electric motorcycle company to meet all US and Canadian safety standards as well as pass EPA certification allowing their bikes to qualify for major federal tax credits of 10% of the purchase price as well as a state sales tax credit.
Restoration of shallow lake habitat in southern and western Minnesota is one of the habitat programs funded by a new 25-year conservation tax in the state. Photo courtesy of Ducks Unlimited.
A new three-eighths cent Minnesota sales tax that took effect July 1 is beginning to result in conservation improvements. Approved as a constitutional amendment by Minnesota voters in November 2008, the tax is in place for 25 years and is expected to raise about $250 million per year for habitat protection, clean water and parks and trails projects.
The first headliner among projects funded by the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment is the largest forest preservation deal ever in the state. About $36 million in taxpayer money, combined with private funds, will purchase conservation easements on 300 square miles of northern Minnesota forestland, staving off potential division of the habitat into a checkerboard of smaller private parcels. Landowner UPM Blandin will continue to own the land and manage it for forest products, but development is prohibited and public access to the land is preserved.
San Francisco, CA - They’re everywhere. On the streets, in gutters; even collecting in pools of water. Little orange and white rolls of paper and tobacco. Cigarettes. Once used, these unfriendly remains haunt our down towns and our backyards. But it’s time to say goodbye to the orange and white…in San Francisco at least. San Francisco Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee unanimously supported a measure that will help get rid of the stubs of used cigarettes.
Many users of mass transit who can now save up to $1,000 a year or more on their transit commute. This represents a potential $440 a year increase in what they can save currently.
Switzerland has historically been a tax haven for Americans (and citizens of other nationalities) however this is about to come to an end as UBS, the largest bank in Switzerland, has agreed “to divulge the names of well-heeled Americans whom the authorities suspect of using offshore accounts at the bank to evade taxes. The bank admitted conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and agreed to pay $780 million to settle a sweeping federal investigation into its activities.” (New York [...]
Faced with dwindling cash reserves, several states are considering raising their Gas Tax. Those with efficient vehicles will come out ahead. Low income families, the trucking industry and the alternative fuel industry will finish last.Now I am all for taxes - there are many essential services that the government performs and they need money to do this. Most often, gas tax goes directly into maintaining and repairing roads and highways - a costly endeavor - but absolutely essential to keep our country alive.
What I’m specifically concerned about is how this will affect three groups: those with low incomes, the trucking industry, and the alternative fuel industry.
Beijing will ban some 353,800 vehicles with high emissions from anywhere within the fifth ring road, which circles the city center at a radius of 10-15 km. One in ten cars and trucks in Beijing will be subject to the ban. But, say city officials, those vehicles account for 50 percent of the city’s notoriously bad auto pollution.
The vehicles on the banned list are those that do not meet the Euro I emissions standards set in Europe in the early 90’s. According to Ren Lihong of the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Science, these cars are a big part of Beijing’s pollution problem.
2008 was a banner year for sustainablog, and we want to end it as strongly as we started. So, for the next twelve days, I’ll take a look back at some of the best and most memorable posts from the past year.Let me start off, though, by expressing my immense gratitude to all of the writers who contributed during 2008. This was our first full year as a multi-author blog, and I couldn’t have been more pleased with the way it turned out. Some of the writers I’ll mention have moved on; others on coming on board. I’m grateful for the inspiration you’ve all brought to the blog over the past year, and look forward with anticipation to what the new year brings us.
Like New Year’s fireworks, January started off with a bang. Here are a few great posts to remember:
The Irish government has announced radical plans to introduce more than 250,000 electric cars onto the nation’s roads by 2020, a staggering ten percent of the total vehicles in the country.
If the scheme is successful, Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI), the state energy agency, estimates an annual cut in CO2 emissions of around 350,000 tonnes. Transport currently accounts for more than a third of Ireland’s carbon emissions, higher than any other sector.
Economic populism involves an economic philosophy urging social and political system changes. In the current political and economic climate, the public concern over the inequity of wealth appears to be at a peak. There is a growing call by Senator Barack Obama and democrats to raise taxes on the wealthy to shrink the wealth gap. But is it true that the rich are getting richer? Or are the rich actually in danger of losing a significant portion of the nation’s [...]
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