A “carbon tax” attached to customers’ utility bills topped an ambitious slate of environmental proposals by Palo Alto Mayor Peter Drekmeier in his State of the City address Monday.
Raising the price of energy from traditional sources by a half cent per kilowatt-hour could bring the cost in line with that of the wind and solar power used in the city’s optional Palo Alto Green program, Drekmeier said. As a result, “everyone would switch over,” cementing the city’s status as a national leader in renewable energy use.
It was perhaps the most surprising suggestion in a speech full of specific ideas for positioning Palo Alto at the forefront of the green movement. Others included:
• a new type of composting operation that could convert sewage to energy for homes and cars
• a weekday farmers market at City Hall aimed at the local workforce
• a complex water-recycling program that would also restore habitat for the endangered California tiger salamander.
As mayor, Drekmeier technically has no more power to impose his agenda than do the other eight members of the city council. Still, several colleagues and observers on Monday hailed his suggestions as “exciting” and “inspiring,” while a few questioned their feasibility.
Drekmeier, a lifelong environmentalist, framed the proposals as a way for the city to creatively respond to challenges such as climate change, a peak in global oil production and scarcity of fresh water. Environmental change will happen no matter what, he said. “It can either happen to us, or we can direct it.”
The phrase “carbon tax” had some scratching their heads, since it typically refers to a broad tax on the burning of fossil fuels, which could be daunting for a local government to administer. Drekmeier clarified after the address that his proposal would be more like a surcharge imposed on customers of the city-owned utility who do not opt for renewable energy. The revenue would subsidize green rebate programs.
“I hesitate to use the term ‘tax,’ because I actually see it as a removal of a subsidy,” Drekmeier said. That is, the tax would incorporate the hidden societal costs of non-renewable energy production into the rates paid by consumers.
The proposal was new to most of Drekmeier’s fellow officials. City Manager Jim Keene said he was “very intrigued” but would have to learn more about the specifics before commenting further. Council Member Larry Klein said he liked the idea of a carbon tax at the national level, but he wasn’t convinced it would work locally.
The program would have to be structured very carefully to avoid running afoul of state laws regulating how cities collect taxes, said City Attorney Gary Baum. A true carbon tax would require “at minimum” a public vote, if it’s legal at all, but a rebate system akin to that of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. might be doable.
Susan Stansbury, a resident of the Barron Park neighborhood who already buys renewable power, said the proposal makes “eminent sense” as a way to “tax bad behavior and encourage good behavior.” But another Barron Park resident, Bob Moss, said it would be “a hard sell,” especially to businesses already nervous about a proposed business license tax.
No formal proposal for the carbon tax is on the table at this point. Drekmeier said he may bring it up in the coming weeks in the form of a council colleagues’ memo.
The water-saving proposal, which Drekmeier said could help reduce the city’s usage 20 percent by the year 2020, is only slightly further along. So far the city uses recycled water only at the municipal golf course and a few other locations near the wastewater treatment plant. The technical challenge is to pipe that water throughout the city.
Under Drekmeier’s suggestion, the treated water would first go to Lake Lagunita on the Stanford University campus, a favored habitat of the tiger salamander. From there it would filter into the water table, becoming even cleaner in the process, before being tapped for irrigation and other uses around the city.
City staff and Stanford officials have explored the idea in the past and found the start-up costs to be high, Drekmeier acknowledged. But he said it’s an expense that may eventually appear small compared to the costs of water scarcity.
Plans to revamp the city’s compost operation are already in the works. The city council last week named a nine-member task force to investigate new technologies such as the “dry fermentation” process Drekmeier mentioned Monday. That process, which is already in use in some parts of the world, would convert green waste, food waste and even sewage sludge into compressed natural gas.
The farmers market could be the first of the major proposals to come to fruition. City Manager Keene has been in talks about it with the local design firm IDEO, which has taken to holding its own markets on Wednesdays because the only other ones in Palo Alto are on weekends. Drekmeier said the city is hoping to launch a weekday market in front of City Hall as early as Earth Day.
If all goes well, Drekmeier said, he imagines farmers coming to Palo Alto to sell their organically produced goods, then heading to the new waste facility to pick up compost and refuel their vehicles with compressed natural gas.
E-mail Will Oremus at woremus@dailynewsgroup.com.
