Watch the progress of user pay environmental proposals

Over the past nine years, the Environmental Priorities Coalition, a network of 25 leading environmental groups has discovered that its unity behind a handful of shared priorities can have more success than operating independently with a scattered message to lawmakers.

This year, the environmental community has adopted four ambitious legislative priorities that recognize the horrible economic conditions faced by lawmakers. Mo McBroom, policy director for the Washington Environmental Council, said leaders of environmental organizations recognize that this is not the year to come to the Legislature with grandiose plans costing millions of dollars — not with the state facing a $4.6 billion budget shortfall.

What’s important to note is the environmentalists have adopted a so-called “user pay” model in which those who use natural resources, those who contribute to pollution, those who take advantage of state programs, would pay a fee.

Members of the public should pay attention to these environmental proposals as they may well signal a shift in state policy, limiting the use of tax dollars to support core state services — basic K-12 education, essential social services and public safety — and requiring user fees for other state services, whether it’s visiting a state park, harvesting timber from state land, getting a water rights permit, hunting, fishing or having a boat inspected.

It’s a policy Gov. Chris Gregoire embraced in parts of her budget proposal to the 2011 Legislature.

It’s a shift in expectations. Call it fees, call it taxes — whatever — members of the public are going to find themselves under the gun to pay more. It might be more tolls to use state highways, higher gasoline taxes to fund highway construction projects, camping and day-use park fees. And once the state heads down that “user pay” path, there will be little to slow the momentum.

That’s why it’s important for members of the public to keep an eye on the 2011 Legislature to see if lawmakers are willing to embrace the “user-pay” philosophy in environmental and other arenas. . . .