Christmas Tree Promotion Order Withdrawn After It Is Panned As A Tax On Christmas Trees

The Washington Post yesterday reviewed details of the one of the first salvos in this year's "Christmas wars." At the urging of an industry group representing producers and importers of fresh cut Christmas trees, the Department of Agriculture published in the Federal Register this week an order under the Commodity Promotion, Research, and Information Act of 1996 establishing a national Christmas Tree Promotion Board.  Rules promulgated by the order assess a fee of fifteen cents per Christmas tree on producers and importers, with the proceeds being used by the Christmas Tree Promotion Board to urge consumers to buy fresh cut, rather than artificial, trees. The order quickly began being characterized on conservative Internet sites as an Obama administration tax on Christmas trees. (See The Foundry.) Ilya Shapiro writing at Cato@Liberty opined: "there are obvious Free Exercise and Equal Protection issues here. That is, unless we consider Christmas trees to be wholly secular, this is an obvious burden on the free exercise of Christianity, and one that no other religion faces." By late yesterday, Fox News reported that a White House spokesman said that the program is being withdrawn.