Update: The answer to the headline question is
apparently no, at least for now. An
alternative climate initiative proposal similar to Carbon Washington’s carbon
tax, but investing revenues in actions to deal with climate change instead of
using them for tax cuts and credits, was rejected by the CarbonWA Executive
Committee later in the day on Dec. 23.
Yoram
Bauman of Carbon Washington sent this message: “Our
Executive Committee met today and discussed an updated (more detailed) version
of the alternative proposal. We debated the issues and considered arguments on
both sides raised by the Executive Committee and by our grassroots base. After
almost 3 hours it became clear that the Executive Committee would not accept
the alternative proposal in its current form and that there was no chance of
modifying the alternative proposal in the very short time frame remaining that
would change the Executive Committee's decision.”
CarbonWA leadership received hundreds of comments regarding the
proposal, which could have led to unification of climate movement forces around
a single November 2016 ballot initiative.
Many comments were unfavorable to the idea and pressed to move forward
with CarbonWA’s Initiative 732. It
appears that the organization will now file its 350,000 signatures in a few
days and gain ballot placement.
This leaves more questions than answers. Will 732 be able to draw sufficient resources
to pass? Will the Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy mount a second climate
initiative? Can we close the divide that
has opened up in the Washington state climate movement? All unknowns.
What this set of events does show is that CarbonWA built a powerful momentum
that could not be stopped or re-directed, even though a significant element of
its leadership favored moving in a different direction. Citizen’s movements take on lives of their
own.
I was on
the losing side of this argument, but I still think it’s valid, and so I will
leave the article standing as is. (PM)
It’s been a bumpy political ride in Washington state climate ballot initiative politics over the past year, but after all is said and done the product might the most winnable and effective November 2016 climate ballot measure.
The break
came Monday with an email and blog post from Carbon
Washington co-founder Yoram Bauman regarding its Initiative 732 carbon tax signature-gathering campaign. “We are on the fence about whether or not to turn in our
350,000 signatures because of the emergence of an alternative proposal.”
The
CarbonWA board will make the decision between now and Dec. 30. Even though
holding back signatures in a successful initiative campaign would be
unprecedented, I am throwing my support behind a decision to do so. This is because the proposal that is emerging
has the best chance of overcoming the substantial obstacles that will be put in
its way. The potential is in sight to
heal a fractious divide between the grassroots climate initiative and a
coalition of progressive organizations aiming at its own ballot measure, the
Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy. With
unity will come the resources and people power needed to put a climate initiative
across the finish line.
Even with
unified forces, passing a carbon pricing measure at the ballot box is going to
be a tough uphill fight. If Washington
achieves this, it will be a global first for any state or province, let alone
nation. Success means overcoming huge
fossil fuel industry funding and the historic reluctance of state voters to
approve new revenues. Climate community divisions have threatened to sink any
ballot measure.
With unity
the imperative for any chance of success, I outlined five scenarios to achieve
it in a recent
Cascadia Planet post. Scenario #1,
CarbonWA withholding signatures and undertaking a unified campaign, began to
publicly play out this week. As
anticipated, it came with some pushback from within CarbonWA ranks. Responses to the blog and in a Tuesday night
conference call were mixed. Some cried
betrayal. Distrust of the Alliance, a
legacy sown by the year’s conflicts, was strongly in evidence. But sentiment in support of a unified effort seemed
evenly represented.
What moved
CarbonWA was polling it did in conjunction with The Nature Conservancy that
strengthened a finding in earlier surveys by Alliance-affiliated groups. I-732 did even worse in a poll it helped design than in earlier polls conducted by its opponents. The revenue-neutral carbon tax design of CarbonWA’s
Initiative 732 does not poll as well as an alternative measure that invests
carbon revenues in clean energy development, clean water and healthy
forests. The odds for passage of the
latter are better. Polling finds that
even conservatives and moderates are more swayed by clean energy investments
than the tax cuts and credits promised under I-732. (The numbers are in
Bauman’s post linked above.) That and a failure to gain
traction among business interests and Republicans swayed CarbonWA leadership to
consider alternatives.
Clean energy investments draw support from across the political spectrum. |
It makes
sense that the way to pass a revenue measure is by associating it with concrete
improvements. A revenue-neutral carbon
tax is, let’s face it, a fairly wonky and abstract proposition. And revenue neutrality has always suffered
from voter skepticism that tax cuts will be permanent. The fear of a “bait-and-switch” is strongest
among the conservative and centrist voters to whom revenue-neutrality is meant
to appeal. On the other hand, voters
prove consistently willing to vote for revenue measures attached to specific
stuff they can see, such as levies for schools and parks. Clean energy has support across the spectrum,
a proposition validated by the recent polling.
Another
problem facing the I-732 revenue-neutral proposal is a state fiscal analysis indicating
that it might actually be revenue-negative, causing a net loss to state
revenues. Democratic legislators have put
up a stern wall of resistance to any such prospect. CarbonWA contests the analysis, but
nonetheless it represents an uncertainty hard to overcome.
Though CarbonWA ranks include many that genuinely believe revenue-neutrality is
the way to win conservative and centrist voters, I-732 drew as much support as
it did because it offered the only viable carbon pricing measure on the
table. Now that an alternative is
emerging, it is likely to pull the vast bulk of I-732 supporters behind it.
One key
reason I support the alternative is because it represents a substantial victory
for the grassroots climate activist upsurge represented by the CarbonWA
campaign. The victory is real. As a condition of withholding their signatures,
CarbonWA has secured a commitment from key environmental nonprofits at the core
of the Alliance that there will be a carbon pricing measure on the November
2016 ballot.
Even though
the Alliance had announced its intent to run an initiative, it was by no means
a certainty. There was still hemming and
hawing over viability and poll numbers within Alliance leadership ranks, as
there had been for months. This was a
significant reason why the Alliance did not file its own initiative to the
legislature last spring when the governor’s climate bill, which it had been
backing, was heading for defeat. As I
wrote in my five
scenarios piece, CarbonWA had a much better sense of the climate streets
and knew there was energy to carry a grassroots initiative campaign
forward. The group seized the early
mover advantage, and achieved signature-gathering and fundraising success
exceeding even its own expectations.
Presented
with the fait accompli, groups including Climate Solutions and Washington
Environmental Council have been in talks with CarbonWA. On the table are a campaign governance structure in which they and CarbonWA have equal
weight, and an “insurance policy,” the deposit of funds sufficient for Carbon
WA to re-run a petition campaign next year based on paid signature gatherers if
the other parties do not carry through on their commitments. Volunteers would not be asked to carry the
signature-gathering load again.
Substantial
concessions have also been made on policy design, and this is my major reason
for swinging behind the alternative.
Unlike the governor’s bill and one of the options considered by the
Alliance, it is not a cap and trade, but a straight-up carbon fee with set
rates. Whatever one’s views on cap and
trade, effective climate policy or false solution, it never was a good idea to
present such a complex proposal to voters.
Divisions in the progressive community over cap and trade plus the
fossil fuel industry’s capacity to distort the issue made it particularly
vulnerable. Because of this, I was
always skeptical about a political process that would even consider a cap and
trade ballot measure as a serious option.
It just seemed that otherwise smart people were not drawing obvious
conclusions.
That drew
me to the simplified carbon tax of I-732.
It could be explained to voters in a fairly straightforward way. A tax rate set under law, $25 per carbon ton
after two years, would fund a one-percent sales tax cut, a Working Families Tax
Credit and elimination of the B&O tax for manufacturers in order to keep
them competitive. It was a classic shift
of taxes on goods to taxes on “bads,” in this case carbon pollution, a
revenue-neutral system suggested by many experts since the 1980s.
But, as
someone who has studied and worked on climate policy for many years,
revenue-neutral was not my ideal. I supported and gathered signatures for I-732
because the top priority is to discourage fossil fuel use by making it pay for
its consequences. What to do with the
revenues came in second. Nonetheless, it
is a highly important second. Overcoming the climate crisis will require
significant public investments. It makes
sense to fund investments with carbon revenues.
This will reduce carbon pollution to a greater degree than a pure
revenue-neutral design.
The
alternative proposal that is emerging makes such investments. As of this
point, it is still a work in progress.
Assuming the final form substantially reflects the proposal, it is
worthy of support. The measure is called a fee rather than a tax, because under
the law a fee can be directed to specific programs whereas a tax cannot. The early fee rate could be lower than
I-732’s initial tax, but grow at a faster rate. Revenues would be devoted, in
priority order, to:
- Investments in clean energy and energy efficiency
- Investments in clean water to adapt to climate impacts on state water resources
- Investments in healthy forests
- Tax credits to mitigate the impact of higher energy prices on the lower 40% of families
- Transition for workers affected by carbon pricing such as refinery workers.
In
addition, a requirement that a certain level of funds be invested in
disadvantaged communities is part of the alternative.
These
investments are likely to allay the concerns of social justice and labor groups
that have caused them to oppose revenue-neutral I-732. They have been strong advocates for the kind
of funding envisioned in the alternative. The capacity of the alternative to
re-unify these groups with the grassroots forces of the I-732 campaign is one
of the most compelling reasons to go for it.
I will
throw down one big caveat. The forest
health piece would allow funding of forest thinning to reduce fire fuels and
wildfires. It should not because thinning is generally not a carbon win.
Because wildfires largely burn tree surfaces, even large wildfires leave the
bulk of carbon on the ground.
One
study finds, “Although
fuel-reduction treatments may be necessary to restore historical functionality
to fire-suppressed ecosystems, we found little credible evidence that such
efforts have the added benefit of increasing terrestrial (carbon) stocks . . .
Carbon losses incurred with fuel removal generally exceed what is protected
from combustion should the treated area burn. Even among fire-prone forests,
one must treat about ten locations to influence future fire behavior in a
single location.”
The forest
health provision of any alternative should be written to support only measures
documented to actually increase forest carbon storage such as conservation
easements and long-rotation forestry. This
will draw universal support from forest advocates, whereas support for forest
health thinning will open an avenue of opposition.
I concluded
my five scenarios piece with these words: “We
should regard it as a triumph that so many people and groups are coming to the
climate table firmly committed to take action. We should all acknowledge
each other as people of good will, and seek the best possible outcomes.
We can ill afford a climate policy train wreck. Let’s do all we possibly
can to avert one.”
Both
sides of the past year’s climate initiative conflict have indeed shown good
will and a common commitment to a win that would be unprecedented – popular
ballot approval to create a carbon policy framework.
It is heartening to see people rise above conflicts to seek the
undoubted common interest in climate victory.
Coming days will show whether their efforts have born success.
TOPICS: CLIMATE CHANGE, CARBON, GLOBAL WARMING, WASHINGTON STATE, INITIATIVE 732, CAP-AND-TRADE, CARBON TAX, CARBON WASHINGTON, ALLIANCE FOR JOBS AND CLEAN ENERGY
Thanks Patrick. Your analysis and thoughts in this space have always been very thoughtful and considerate. It's much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteSo much for the endzone dance. It would have helped me, and I expect others, to accept the Alliance proposal if the big players had expressed even a little self-awareness about past blunders. This, combined with the chronic vagueness of the Alliance's plan, made it impossible for me to generate more than half-hearted support for what I expected would be CarbonWA's decision to toss the keys to the Alliance.
ReplyDeleteInterested to hear what you think going forward now that the compromise has been rejected. I gathered signatures but at the moment I feel discouraged.
ReplyDeleteSounds like Cabon WA is moving forward on 732 after all. Now what?
ReplyDelete