Washington State’s Plan to Tax Fuel Exports Angers Neighbors

(Bloomberg) -- Washington’s plan to tax fuel exported from the state is angering neighbors in Oregon, Alaska and Idaho, who say their residents would bear the cost of the proposal.

The state’s legislature has proposed a 6 cents-per-gallon tax, part of a $16.8 billion transportation bill that would fund roads and transit and modernize an aging ferry system. The export tax would be the first of its kind in the nation, according to the Washington Policy Center. The revenue plan narrowly advanced out of a state House committee Tuesday. 

Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy has decried the proposal in tweets, saying it treats his state like “a colony.” He encouraged his residents to call Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s office to complain.

Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown, also took to Twitter, and penned an op-ed in the Seattle Times, noting her neighbor to the north hasn’t consulted with her office on the plan. “If Washington leaders are advancing a policy that impacts the working families on our side of the river without benefit, I expect, at the very least, the common courtesy of a phone call,’’  Brown wrote. 

If it moves forward, Oregon will likely mount a legal challenge, Brown said. 

Idaho Governor Brad Little also is displeased.

“Now is not the time for our states to turn on each other with excise tax proposals that dampen our economy and increase costs for everyone,’’ Little said on Twitter.

The Seattle Times reported the opposition to the plan earlier Wednesday. 

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