By Joel Connelly
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
April 08, 2010
Angering greens and faith groups, a $5 million-a-year sales tax exemption for TransAlta, the Canadian corporation that owns the Centralia coal plant, has apparently remained in the state budget.
The Washington State Legislature is moving toward a final compromise on taxes and cuts designed to close a $2.6 billion deficit.
The same groups applauded in February when leadership in the Washington State Senate moved to eliminate the exemption to the state’s largest polluter.
“TransAlta’s coal plant is Washington’s single largest stationary source of pollution including carbon dioxide, toxic mercury and haze,” said Doug Howell, director of the Sierra Club’s campaign for a coal-free Washington.
“As Washington continues to face the biggest financial crisis in our state’s history, it is unconscionable to think that our state’s most harmful polluter will continue receiving unnecessary and unfair tax breaks.”
Environmental groups are also angry with Gov. Chris Gregoire, whose candidacy they championed in the 2004 and 2008 gubernatorial races.
The TransAlta tax exemption was included in the governor’s compromise budget, and her office in on record opposing its repeal. (The controversial coal plant is in Lewis County, which gave more than 60 percent of its vote to Gregoire’s 2008 opponent Dino Rossi.)
“We are concerned this support for TransAlta may foreshadow disappointing results for current negotiations between TransAlta and the governor over public health and environmental protection,” Howell added.
LeeAnne Beres, executive director of Earth Ministry/Washington Interfaith Power & Light, added: “Coal is a dirty and dangerous power source and a major contributor to climate change, one of the most important moral issues of our time.”