New ballot initiative to tax water bottling

A political activist from San Diego has begun collecting signatures for a ballot initiative to appear on the 2016 ballot. The initiative is to increase taxes on bottle water companies who use groundwater during the California drought.

“We’re going to put a five-cent per ounce excise tax on water that you [bottling companies] take from California’s ground during a drought,” Louis Marinelli, the primary proponent of the initiative, told KCBS San Francisco.

According to the initiative, the money collected from this tax would then be used in “a special fund for the construction, maintenance, and repair of water infrastructure projects including dams, levies, water treatment facilities, and water desalination plants.”

The initiative is being circulated by Sovereign California, a group dedicated to the promotion California’s interests in Washington, D.C.