SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: Got an oil furnace? Durkan will tax you for that

Aug 9, 2019, 12:35 PM

ice seattle Durkan, oil furnace...

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan. (File photo, Karen Ducey/Getty Images)

(File photo, Karen Ducey/Getty Images)

When I was a kid, we had an oil furnace. I remember how the oil tanker trunk would come every few months. I remember the metal cap in the yard where it would be refilled.

We would often run out of oil and not have a working furnace for weeks at a time because my mom didn’t have the money to get more heating oil.

A lot of the people who have an oil furnace live in an older house and cannot afford to make the conversion to gas — I’m talking about older people on a fixed income or the working poor. There are 18,000 homes in Seattle with those old oil furnaces, those Craftsman-style homes that were built in the 1920s through 1950s.

Well now Jenny Durkan wants to impose an oil tax on those homes of 24 cents per gallon, as she announced in a press release this week. The reason? She wants to essentially punish people for having oil furnaces. She wants to get people to switch to renewable sources of heat.

Jay Inslee exploits low-income residents for his own selfish aspirations

This is a tax that is mainly going to be on older people and on those who cannot afford the conversion.

Here’s where it gets especially hypocritical — she says they’re going to use the tax revenue to fund programs that will help the poor switch to electric heat. An older person on a fixed income may not qualify for these government-funded programs, but that person does qualify to provide that money.

It’s just another example of how government is micro-managing our lives. It’s social engineering in the name of the climate scam.

Seattle loves to tax the poorest people, minorities, and the elderly. Think of the soda tax. Think of the congestion pricing they’re pushing. Now we have this oil tax. The politicians do all this talking about the groups that they care about, and then those very groups are the ones that get slammed with every new tax that they impose.

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from 12-3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

FILE - Police arrive outside Old Dominion University's campus after reports of an active shooter on...

Associated Press

Virginia university didn’t know of student’s conviction before campus shooting, report says

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A student who spent eight years in prison for attempting to aid the Islamic State and who opened fire in a classroom at Old Dominion University in March was not asked about his criminal history before or after he was readmitted to the school in Norfolk, Virginia, according to an investigative […]

1 hour ago

Ada Torres holds tomatoes while shopping for produce, Thursday, July 2, 2026, in Cleveland, Texas, ...

Associated Press

Americans’ confidence in US economy fell this month as Iran conflict sent gas prices back up

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans’ confidence in the economy fell this month as gas prices resumed their climb after the U.S. and Iran stepped up their fighting. The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index fell to 90.8 in July from 92.2 in June. Consumers view of current business and labor market conditions fell […]

2 hours ago

bite of seattle dead two-year-old shot...

Charlie Harger

Harger: Three people are dead at the Bite of Seattle. A two-year-old was shot. The city deserved better than what came next

A 44-year-old man was killed. A 56-year-old woman died at Harborview after surgery. Four others, including a two-year-old boy, were shot. A toddler.

2 hours ago

wsdot road closure I-405 I-90 SR 167 kirkland puyallup bellevue...

Nate Connors

WSDOT’s road closures this week: I-405 in Kirkland, I-90 in Bellevue, SR 167 in Puyallup

The warm and dry summer months are when we see WSDOT at its busiest. The weather allows the agency to perform a number of tasks that can only be accomplished in the summer.

2 hours ago

climate website noaa doge...

Ted Buehner

Former NOAA scientists rebuild climate data website after DOGE shut it down

Since 2015, SEA has averaged eight days of 90 or above per year. In the 20th century, that average was just three days per year.

3 hours ago

seattle center shooting victims...

Katy Wade, KIRO 7 News

What we know about the Seattle Center shooting victims and how to support them and their families

Three people were killed, including one possible suspect, and at least four others were injured in a mass shooting at the Bite of Seattle food festival on Sunday night.

3 hours ago

Dori: Got an oil furnace? Durkan will tax you for that