Prop. 37 asks who will pay for pollution clean-up  

By Jennifer Umaña
Daily Forty-Niner

On November 7, voters will decide via Proposition 37 who should pick up the tab for pollution - the polluters or the California taxpayers?

If passed, the proposition will redefine the way study, monitoring, and mitigation of an environmental, societal, or economic effect of a polluting activity is paid for.

Supporters of the proposition aim to close the loophole created by the 1997 California Supreme Court decision in Sinclair Paint v. State Board of Equalization, said Mike Garcia, spokesperson for Californians Against Hidden Taxes, Yes on Proposition 37.

"Basically, we feel that as a result of the Sinclair decision, it opened a floodgate of new taxes disguised as fees," Garcia said. The Yes on 37 campaign aims to restore fairness to the tax code, he said.

"The proposition is important because it protects taxpayers, consumers and businesses," Garcia said.

Allison Pratt of the California Tax Reform Association, which supports the No on 37 campaign, said that the supporters of the proposition are putting on a front.

"They are making stretches to frighten voters," she said. "They're trying to use the ballot to overturn a Supreme Court decision."

Oil, tobacco and alcohol companies are funding 94 percent of the campaign in favor of the proposition, Pratt said.

Kelly Hayes-Raitt, media director for No on 37 said that this proposition was put on the ballot by oil, tobacco, and alcohol companies to pass their costs on to Californians.

"It was put on the ballot by major corporations to shift fees onto the backs of taxpayers," she said.

If the proposition is passed it could eventually cost taxpayers millions of dollars down the road and it will have a huge impact on the way regulatory agencies get funding, Hayes-Raitt said.

The opposition to Proposition 37 includes the League of Women Voters, the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Association, the American Heart Association, and the Environmental Tax Policy Institute.

Garcia said that the proposition is a complex measure and 51 percent of voters are still undecided. An estimated twenty-six percent of voters oppose the proposition while 21 percent are in favor of it, he said.