If someone told you it only costs $25 in taxes every five years to drive on Washington's roads and highways, what would you say? After all, that's how much it costs to renew your driver's license.

That is the logic being used by the environmental community to justify a big increase in permit costs for forestry companies.

Environmental activists are pushing for higher fees on forestry companies, sending an e-mail to supporters this week claiming:

Did you know that a permit to log $300,000 worth of timber costs a billion dollar company only $50? That seems crazy, right?  Unfortunately, it’s true.

They argue that the state should raise the permit fee "Right now, many industries that benefit from using our natural resources, like big timber companies, do not pay their fair share for the services they receive."

This ignores, however, the other fees and taxes paid by forestry companies, including the forest harvest excise tax, business and occupation taxes, property tax, sales and use tax and other taxes. The permit fee accounts for only 0.1 percent of the total taxes and fees paid by the companies.

So, the logic of the Environmental Priorities Coalition makes sense, as long as you ignore 99.9 percent of taxes and fees paid by these companies. Just as it makes sense to argue that it only costs $25 every five years to drive in Washington, as long as you ignore gas taxes, vehicle registration, insurance mandates, county road taxes, city road taxes, etc.

In politics, people often claim their opponents are "lying." Usually, however, people just leave out inconvenient information, in this case the other, literally, 99.9 percent. So the environmental community isn't lying, they're just leaving some information out that doesn't help make their case -- and hoping nobody asks.

On the plus side, at least in this instance they aren't claiming higher taxes will create jobs.