The mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania, has been campaigning with former officials from President Barack Obama\u2019s administration to champion green tax policies.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Paige Cognetti, the congressional candidate for Pennsylvania\u2019s 8th Congressional District, was seen alongside Jon Carson, a former Obama administration official involved in the federal Chesapeake Bay cleanup effort.<\/p>\n
Carson served as chief of staff to the White House Council on Environmental Quality from 2009 to 2010, when the administration was implementing its Chesapeake Bay restoration strategy\u2014commonly described by the Environmental Protection Agency as a regional \u201cpollution diet\u201d designed to reduce nutrient and sediment levels across multiple states.<\/p>\n
Carson is associated with what Scranton residents call the \u201crain tax,<\/a>\u201d a city-imposed fee on homeowners as a penalty<\/a> for using fertilizers, which run off into streams when it rains. Opponents of the fee say it is ineffective, hurts homeowners, and should not be pushed at the national level.<\/p>\n In an interview with the Daily Signal, Dwayne McDavitt, a resident of Scranton and retired law enforcement officer, said that Cognetti\u2019s actions as mayor are exactly the type of thing Washington, D.C., needs less of.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should not be sending more people to Washington who champion this agenda<\/a>. On paper, the tax is supposed to be for a storm water fee,\u201d McDavitt told the Daily Signal. \u201cBut this tax only applies to homeowners in Cognetti\u2019s town. They told us this fee was to clean the Chesapeake Bay and prevent certain wildlife from dying, but they\u2019re actually thriving.\u201d<\/p>\n