How should Boulder best reduce GHG's?

The City's Plan

City staff has determined that their Climate Action Plan will require a budget of approximately one million dollars per year. Their plan proposes to generate the funds by imposing a "carbon tax" or "fee" on Boulder citizens and businesses. One of staff's proposed mechanisms would have Xcel Energy include the tax/fee on their monthly statements, then remit these collections to the city. This levy would be based on the amount of energy consumed by Boulder customers. In another version, the city would tax everyone based on the amount of square feet a home or business occupies The city would then include this levy in the monthly water & sewer billing statement to all users within the city's system. This effort may be ahead of itself in that city staff, with input from a task force of citizens, has designed a program for collecting money to support programs for energy abatement, yet no abatement programs have been designed. A more logical approach would be for city staff to design an energy reduction program before developing a budget and before making a request for new funding mechanisms.