Montana lawmakers are considering two bills to tax carbon pollution, and not surprisingly owners of Colstrip Power Plant say the measures would kill the facility.
Democratic legislators are floating two bills creating a $10-per-ton tax on carbon dioxide from various sources, including coal-fired power plants. Theirs aren’t the first attempts targeting Colstrip. Washington State, where 1.8 million customers draw power from utilities with Colstrip ownership shares, twice attempted unsuccessfully to tax greenhouse gases last year, first in the Legislature, then by initiative.
The message delivered to Montana lawmakers by carbon tax supporters is to impose a tax in Montana and reap the revenue, or draw none of the benefits when another state’s carbon tax bites Colstrip.