The Maryland "Rain Tax"

by Blair Lee
Gazette
Apr. 11, 2013

In 2010 the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency ordered Maryland to reduce stormwater runoff into the Chesapeake Bay so that nitrogen levels fall 22 percent and phosphorus falls 15 percent from current amounts. The price tag: $14.8 billion.

And where do we get the $14.8 billion? By taxing so-called "impervious surfaces," anything that prevents rain water from seeping into the earth (roofs, driveways, patios, sidewalks, etc.) thereby causing storm water run off. In other words, a rain tax.

And who levies this new rain tax? Witness how taxation, like rain, trickles down through the various pervious levels of government until it reaches the impervious level -- me and you.

The EPA ordered Maryland to raise the money (an unfunded mandate), Maryland ordered its 10 largest counties to raise the money (another unfunded mandate) and, now, each of those counties is putting a local rain tax in place by July 1.

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