The fate of Washington’s primary program to combat climate change will be in the hands of voters to uphold or reject this November

Brian Heywood (left), founder of Let’s Go Washington, stands in front of boxes of petitions for an initiative to repeal Washington’s cap-and invest program. Washington State Republican Party Chair Jim Walsh, (red sweater) who filed the initiative, addressed supporters before the signatures were turned in Nov. 21, 2023. Members of Washington Conservation Action (background) held signs in opposition. (Jerry Cornfield/Washington State Standard)

Initiative 2117, certified for the ballot on Tuesday, would erase the two-year-old Climate Commitment Act. The law imposes annual limits on greenhouse gas emissions for major emitters, such as oil refiners and utilities, and requires them to buy allowances at state auctions for each metric ton of their pollution.

The state raised $1.8 billion from allowance auctions last year. Revenue is designated for programs to cut pollution and help the state respond to climate change. Thus far, funding has gone into the purchase of electric school buses, free public transit for youth, air quality monitoring, and electric vehicle chargers.

Critics contend the policy won’t significantly move the needle on climate change but is driving fuel, food and energy prices higher as companies pass the new expense onto consumers.

“It has already taken a bite out of family budgets and put a heavy burden on commuters just so politicians can distribute feel-good subsidies to their political friends and allies,” said hedge fund manager Brian Heywood, founder of Let’s Go Washington and chief financier of the successful signature-gathering effort for the initiative.

 

Supporters turned in upwards of 400,000 signatures for Initiative 2117 in November.

Because it is an initiative to the Legislature, the measure will first go to lawmakers who can adopt it as written this session.

That won’t happen. Democrats hold majorities in the House and Senate and for them, the Climate Commitment Act is a signature policy they won’t ditch.

Neither will Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee who has pushed for carbon pricing through his three terms. He’s now urging the Legislature to link Washington’s carbon market with ones in California and Quebec. Even with the measure in play, work on “linkage” of the programs is underway this legislative session.

“This effort to repeal the Climate Commitment Act is not just a repeal of a financial instrument,” Inslee said this week. 

“It is a system to give people cleaner air and if the [emissions] cap is eliminated, the protection will be eliminated. The people who want to pass this initiative want to have the right to produce infinite carbon pollution. I fundamentally disagree with that and people need to know that it is a threat.”

--Jerry Cornwall, The Washington Standard