Congress Approves Seven-Year Internet-Tax Ban

Yes, I'd rather a gasoline tax hike or a cigarette tax hike or an alcohol tax hike...

Congress Approves Seven-Year Internet-Tax Ban

The measure now goes to President Bush, who is expected to sign it in time to meet Thursday's deadline.

By Richard Martin InformationWeek October 30, 2007 04:30 PM

It's not easy to get the partisan Congress to vote unanimously on anything these days, but apparently both parties can agree that Internet access should not be taxed.

With only two days to spare, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 402-0 on Tuesday morning to extend the moratorium on state and local Internet taxes. The move was applauded by Internet service providers, wireless carriers, and other Web companies that said that prices for Web access could shoot up as much as 17% without it.

Originally passed as the 1998 Internet Tax Freedom Act, the ban was extended to Nov. 1, 2007 as the Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act of 2004. The new bill prohibits "bit taxes" and the like through 2014.

What's Hot Today

The story

Relentless wildfires roared through Southern California for a third day Tuesday, sending more than half a million residents fleeing with family members, pets and whatever prize possessions they could fit in their vehicles.

The blazes have charred 400,000 acres and reduced 1,300 homes -- 1,000 in San Diego County -- to ash.

The fires have killed one person and injured more than 50. Earlier Tuesday, officials erroneously reported that a second person had died.

Earlier Tuesday, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, said the number of evacuees "could very well approach 500,000 by the end of the day."

By Tuesday night, officials had evacuated nearly 350,000 homes in San Diego County. Using U.S. Census Bureau numbers from the 2000 census, that could mean as many as 950,000 were affected by the fires.

Gore and warming

Let me not forget to praise Al Gore's efforts at clmate change enlightenment. Check out:
An Appreciation Of Al Gore by Hon. Wangari Maathai

NAIROBI -
When I learned this month that the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for their groundbreaking work to raise awareness about the threats posed by global warming, I was delighted.

In 1990, then Sen. Gore visited the Green Belt Movement in Kenya and later wrote about our work planting trees with poor, rural women in his book Earth in the Balance. A few years later, Vice President Gore invited me to join him on a trip to Haiti to view first-hand the effects of extreme deforestation on the country. Nearly every tree had been cut down, and people, desperate to feed themselves, had planted crops wherever they could, including on barren hillsides. When the rains came, the soil just washed away.

Unfortunately, little has changed. In times of extreme floods and hurricanes, which affect Haiti all too often, thousands of people lose their homes and their lives.

Back then, neither of us could imagine being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize or, indeed, that the Norwegian Nobel Committee would expand its conception of peace and security to encompass protecting the environment, ensuring the equitable and sustainable use of natural resources, and raising awareness of the linkages between ecological stress and conflict. By choosing Al Gore and the IPCC as this year's peace laureates, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has rightly reminded us that climate change is the single biggest threat to world peace.

Bioplastics

Sure, we've all heard about biodegradable products. But here's the skinny on bioplastics.

"Bioplastics are a new generation of biodegradable & compostable plastics, derived from renewable raw materials such as starch (e.g. corn, potato, tapioca etc), cellulose, soy protein, lactic acid etc., not hazardous in production and decompose back to carbon dioxide, water, biomass etc. in the environment when discarded."