THE BOSTON GLOBE – 25/05/09

This article suggests that a gas tax is a key missing component of the Massachusetts Senate’s recent passage of a tax package. It highlights the need to get serious about moving away from a CO2-emitting, petroleum-based economy, and suggests that a gas tax is needed, not just to provide a source of funding to fix crumbling infrastructure, nor just to create jobs, but also to encourage the move toward more efficient cars, hybrids and plug-in electric vehicles. It draws on the responses to last summer’s gas prices to argue that people do adjust their behaviour to sustained price signals. Above all, the article calls for the political will to ‘use the tools available only to our government to give us a nudge in the right direction. And the gas tax is precisely the nudge we need’. Read the article…