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February 15, 2008 > News > SA blocks green tax vote

SA blocks green tax vote

Proposed sustainability blanket tax kept off ballot

By | Thresher Editorial Staff

A proposal to place a $10 blanket tax for renewable energy on the Student Association ballot this year was rejected by a narrow vote at the SA meeting Monday. However, the Renewable Energy Fund Committee, the committee that would have received the tax money, was approved.

The tax, proposed by the SA Environmental Committee, would be used to provide renewable sources of energy to campus, Brown College Senator Patrick McAnaney said. At first, the only goal of the tax was to fund the installation of solar panels on the Rice Memorial Center. McAnaney, a Brown sophomore, said they decided to make the wording more general because Sustainability Director Richard Johnson pointed out it was important to maintain a flexibility in the wording of the blanket tax to keep their options open if they decided to pursue other sources of renewable energy.

McAnaney said that a lot of other universities, including University of Illinois and Harvard University, have similar student renewable energy fees that were met with student approval. He said anything less than $10 per student would not raise sufficient funds for a project like putting solar panels on the RMC.

The blanket tax required two votes: one to establish the Renewable Energy Fund Committee and one to put the $10 blanket tax on the ballot. The first required a simple majority, while the other required a two-thirds vote in favor. The first vote to establish the committee was tied and so, for the first time this year, SA President Laura Kelley acted as a tiebreaker, voting in favor of the committee. The second vote to put the blanket tax on the ballot was also tied until Jones College President Terry Bucher changed his vote from abstain to against.

Bucher refused to comment.

Kelley, a Brown senior, said she thought the SA Senators were confused when they were voting, and that some senators thought they were voting to put the blanket tax on the ballot with the first vote.

The Senate first voted on whether or not to establish the committee, and then voted on whether or not to put the blanket tax to fund the committee on the ballot.

“The way it was presented was maybe a bit unclear,” Kelley said.

Kelley said requests to increase or create a new blanket tax were fairly uncommon, the last one being in the 2005-‘06 school year to increase an existing blanket tax for University Blue by 35 cents. It was rejected.

“In general students are always opposed to a blanket tax going up mostly because of the worry that for students who are financially stretched to go to Rice this will impact them,” Kelley said. “There were senators who did not want to vote for the increase, because they were not sure of the way it might affect some students.”

Kelley said the relative permanence of blanket taxes meant that students were less likely to approve them.

“Once you [establish] blanket tax it’s pretty permanent and pretty hard to take it off,” Kelley said. “I think people were wondering why this money needed to come from students and why it couldn’t come from the administration.”

SA Environmental Committee Chair Lauren Laustsen said she thought the Environmental Committee had changed the proposal sufficiently to reflect some of the concerns people had voiced after they presented it at previous SA meetings. Laustsen, a Sid Richardson College senior, said they had decreased the amount of the fee and proposed letting the fee be used for a greater variety of renewable energy proposals.

Laustsen said she was surprised the SA voted not to put the tax on the ballot, especially since a poll conducted last year said that 81 percent of 290 students polled would be willing to pay a fee of at least $25 for environmental projects. The results of this poll were not broken down by residential college, which polls normally are.

“All along we’d had a little bit of opposition to the idea for having a fee for renewable energy,” Laustsen said. “But we didn’t really feel there was any opposition to the idea of letting students vote on it. We were sort of surprised that it didn’t pass and that students don’t have a chance to voice their opinions.”

McAnaney also said he felt students should have had a chance to voice their opinions.

“I certainly can’t go out and say students want this to happen because I’m not in the position to do that,” McAnaney said. “Only students themselves could that, but I think students themselves would like to be able to vote on this. It was a little undemocratic.”

No matter what, McAnaney said he wanted to put the proposal on the General Election Ballot because blanket taxes require a two-thirds approval of at least 20 percent of the student body. He said even though the SA voted not to put the blanket tax on the ballot, the Environmental Committee would continue to attempt to get it passed, perhaps through a referendum, but that it would be more challenging to get the required 20 percent turnout for a referendum. They might be able to get the blanket tax on the ballot for the Spring Elections.

“Now we hopefully can look it over and figure out what the issues were,” McAnaney said. “We’ll try to make the proposal a little more clear but there really is no way we can get it approved unless the college presidents and senators and the SA executive council are willing to approve it.”

Martel College sophomore Sarita Panchang said she thought that the $10 blanket tax was a worthwhile investment.

“Given the amount by which tuition has been rising in the past year or so an extra $10 on my tuition bill would be something that I wouldn’t mind paying because it’s towards a pretty legitimate cause,” Panchang said. “If they were really worried about its efficacy they could see if it’s creating a difference and then take it off if it wasn’t working but really I think 10 dollars for something like this in the face of a several thousand for my tuition is not a big deal.”

End of article

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