Washington State Democratic Party takes position opposing CarbonWA’s I‑732

1. I‑732 makes the state tax code sub­stan­tial­ly more progressive. 

   The quote by Joe Ryan was tak­en out of con­text. His point was that I‑732 does­n’t just tax car­bon: It also reduces some of the most regres­sive tax­es in the state, and funds (and increas­es) the Work­ing Fam­i­lies Tax Rebate. In con­junc­tion, those two changes to the state tax code cut the effec­tive tax rate on the bot­tom quin­tile of the state in more than half.

   See this explana­to­ry fig­ure on how I‑732 makes the tax code more progressive: 

   http://rameznaam.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Working-Families-Tax-Rebate-CarbonWA-With-Explanatory-Arrows.jpg

   I’m sur­prised to see that this isn’t under­stood in these quar­ters. I‑732 is a mas­sive­ly pro­gres­sive change to the state tax code. 

   Final­ly, note that the fis­cal analy­sis that found I‑732 rev­enue con­tains some very clear errors. For instance, it gave I‑732 zero cred­it for tax­ing the exports of elec­tric­i­ty from Wash­ing­ton, even though I‑732 quite clear­ly does this. More on the flaws in the fis­cal analy­sis (some of them quite glar­ing), here:
   http://yeson732.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/OFM.0.160128.AllDocumentsPackage.pdf

   Ramez Naam
   Car­bon­WA Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee Member

2. As a young, pro­gres­sive, life­long cli­mate advo­cate, I find this post both moral­ly unfor­giv­able and eco­nom­i­cal­ly illiterate. 

   1. You are advo­cat­ing against the only live, pro­gres­sive, rev­enue-neu­tral car­bon tax cam­paign in the country–in favor of an alter­nate pol­i­cy that DOES NOT EXIST. We are min­utes past mid­night for a liv­able plan­et. How dare you destroy the unimag­in­ably dif­fi­cult, self­less work of count­less vol­un­teers with the dream of…you know, maybe not dying? And you do this, “because polling,” “because Cal­i­for­nia,” and “because Tim EYMAN’s friend does­n’t like it”?! Thoughtful.

   2. You are igno­rant of even the bare fun­da­men­tals of car­bon pric­ing. You can price car­bon through a tax or cap and trade. They have the same effect. And yes, they are BOTH regressive–without care­ful treat­ment of result­ing rev­enues. Return­ing rev­enue to peo­ple can, instead, yield wild­ly pro­gres­sive pol­i­cy. I‑732 suc­ceeds in that by off­set­ting Wash­ing­ton’s regres­sive sales tax and fund­ing the Work­ing Fam­i­lies Tax Rebate. 

   Thank you for insur­ing that I nev­er again affil­i­ate as a Demo­c­rat. Your par­ty is fail­ing my generation.

3. Words can­not express my lev­el of dis­ap­point­ment in Wash­ing­ton’s osten­si­bly pro­gres­sive lead­er­ship. Here we have the *only* fight­ing chance at real, mean­ing­ful car­bon pricing–orders of mag­ni­tude more mean­ing­ful than Cal­i­for­ni­a’s AB32–a mea­sure that would dra­mat­i­cal­ly strike the heart of our coun­try’s most regres­sive tax struc­ture, brought into the realm of the pos­si­ble only by the sac­ri­fice of grass­roots vol­un­teers. Even if a bet­ter mea­sure were avail­able today (and the fact that it’s not is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the groups that are actu­al­ly mon­eyed enough to advance bal­lot ini­tia­tives) I should expect our Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty to sup­port both bills.

   This is where cyn­i­cism comes from. Entrenched polit­i­cal oper­a­tives that oppose any­thing not com­ing from them­selves. Go dig up your col­lege diary and try to ratio­nal­ize that your moti­va­tion for doing this work is remote­ly com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with your dis­grace­ful Machi­avel­lian bro­ker­ing of our future. Decen­cy demands that you imme­di­ate­ly reverse your posi­tion on I‑732, issue a for­mal apol­o­gy, and dear god, some­body has got to resign. What kind of world will our chil­dren inher­it if such a vile betray­al can exist with impunity?

4. > If Ryan believes car­bon tax­es are regres­sive, why is he work­ing to pass I‑732? Why aren’t he and Car­bon­WA push­ing for a cap and trade sys­tem instead?

   A car­bon tax is regres­sive. So is a cap based sys­tem. They both fun­da­men­tal­ly impose a price on car­bon, result­ing in high­er fos­sil-fuel-based ener­gy costs, which dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly impacts low income individuals. 

   (The whole idea pric­ing car­bon is to inter­nal­ize the “true cost” of car­bon [ocean acid­i­fi­ca­tion, extreme storms, wild­fires], thus mak­ing car­bon-inten­sive goods more expen­sive. It’s this price sig­nal which incen­tivizes the tran­si­tion to renew­able ener­gy, local food sys­tems, and a car­bon-zero future!)

   Again, since low­er income folks use more of their incomes on ener­gy and trans­porta­tion, they will be dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affect­ed. Ergo, a car­bon tax and a cap are regressive! 

   The ques­tion then is, how do we use the car­bon rev­enue to counter the inher­ent regres­sive­ness of a price on car­bon? How can we make it _progressive_ instead of regressive?

   C’mon, y’all. Ya got­ta do bet­ter. That plan­et is fry­ing, and you’re act­ing like we can sit this out.

5. Def­i­nite­ly a good idea for Wash­ing­ton Democ­rats to come out against a viable statewide bal­lot mea­sure to price car­bon. Be sure to record this one in the diary for the grandkids.

6. Yeah… this is why the Allaince for Jobs and Clean Ener­gy sup­port­ed Gov­er­nor Inslee’s first cap and trade pro­pos­al, which pro­vid­ed $143 mil­lion in sup­port for low income com­mu­ni­ties com­pared to I‑732’s $200 mil­lion, his sec­ond cap and trade pro­pos­al, which pro­vid­ed about half I‑732’s sup­port, and now sup­ports hav­ing Ecol­o­gy sim­ply cap emis­sions and raise fos­sil fuel prices while pro­vid­ing zero sup­port for low income communities.

   Though they haven’t yet announced it, email from the Alliance’s steer­ing com­mit­tee says they’ve now decid­ed, once again, that they’re not going to run a car­bon pric­ing ini­tia­tive this time after all. Maybe the time will be right as far as they’re con­cerned in…??

7. Your char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of both votes is incorrect.

   I wrote the pro-732 res­o­lu­tion, and spoke against the anti-732 res­o­lu­tion, and of course was in the room dur­ing the debate and vote.

   Both res­o­lu­tions had been sub­mit­ted the evening before, and com­mit­tee mem­bers did not have hard copies of either of them. The anti-732 res­o­lu­tion was con­sid­ered first, and mem­bers had to try to read it off the pro­jec­tion screen. It was 4 pages long, with a lot of super­flu­ous where­as­es and sev­er­al fac­tu­al­ly wrong where­as­es in addi­tion to the tooth­less there­for­es. The com­mit­tee did not read the res­o­lu­tion before pass­ing it, and, hav­ing passed it, declared my pro-732 res­o­lu­tion moot. There was no attempt to read my resolution. 

   The anti-732 res­o­lu­tion was writ­ten by state par­ty Chair Jax­on Ravens. Hav­ing read it, I sug­gest you not throw stones about poor­ly writ­ten res­o­lu­tions or initiatives.

   As near as I can tell, this res­o­lu­tion was an offer­ing to Labor (the res­o­lu­tion men­tions refin­ery work­ers a half-dozen times as exam­ples of jobs that need sav­ing) in hopes they will not aban­don Gov­er­nor Inslee after his high­ly unpop­u­lar tax breaks for Boeing.

   1. There was noth­ing incor­rect about my char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of the votes, Steve. Your com­ment adds more col­or and con­text to what hap­pened in Lyn­nwood (which is per­fect­ly fine), but you have not actu­al­ly dis­put­ed what I wrote. 

      I too was in the room when the I‑732 res­o­lu­tions were being dis­cussed by the Res­o­lu­tions Com­mit­tee — I heard you speak, and wit­nessed your exchanges with com­mit­tee mem­bers. I was sit­ting in the back with the oth­er guests. 

      The res­o­lu­tion the WSDCC approved is not the res­o­lu­tion I would have writ­ten. Whether its where­as and there­fore be it resolved claus­es are whol­ly accu­rate or sound­ly con­struct­ed or not, it is true that the Res­o­lu­tions Com­mit­tee had a dis­cus­sion about I‑732 and vot­ed to give a “do pass” rec­om­men­da­tion to the res­o­lu­tion tak­ing a no posi­tion on I‑732, then a “no pass” rec­om­men­da­tion on your res­o­lu­tion, which the com­mit­tee deemed moot. 

      It is like­wise the case that when the WSDCC vot­ed on the res­o­lu­tion oppos­ing I‑732, there was pret­ty much no dis­sent. I was in the room when the WSDCC vot­ed. You were not, as you your­self admit­ted. You stat­ed lat­er in a speech dur­ing the Good of the Order that you were not in the room because you had stepped out. So you did­n’t wit­ness the WSD­C­C’s vote.

8. I’m not going to take the time or space here to dis­pute what else you have writ­ten, though much could be disputed.

   The issue of the final vote is an inter­est­ing one. Some­one who was in the room and intend­ing to speak told me he missed the oppor­tu­ni­ty because the issue came and went so quick­ly. So I’m actu­al­ly not sure whether I was in the room or not, and I am sure the Chair did­n’t work very hard to receive comments.

   I agree with the oth­er com­menters that it was beyond dis­ap­point­ing for the par­ty (those few who were actu­al­ly aware of what they were doing) to have done this. 

   Let’s do this: I admit that there are things about your posi­tion that I don’t under­stand. If you could admit that there are things about mine (and oth­ers expressed here), per­haps we could have an actu­al conversation. 

   Mean­while, NPI is a mem­ber of the Alliance. Could you please give us some insights into what hap­pens next? What is their time­line? What will they do that will be bet­ter than what they are work­ing so hard to derail, and enough bet­ter that the lost time will be worthwhile?

   For ref­er­ence, here is the res­o­lu­tion. Cli­mate change as polit­i­cal football. 

9. I think sev­er­al of the com­ments on this post amply demon­strate that Car­bon­WA’s sup­port­ers just do not take crit­i­cism well. They are con­vinced of the right­eous­ness of their plan. Woe to any­one who dis­agrees with them. They’ve crit­i­cized the Alliance for not putting any­thing con­crete on the table. The Alliance deserves that crit­i­cism, certainly. 

   But while they can dish out crit­i­cism, Car­bon­WA’s sup­port­ers can’t seem to take any. Too bad. 

   I could­n’t agree more than we need to act on cli­mate, and fast. But we also can’t afford to lose rev­enue. Our leg­is­la­tors are in con­tempt of court for not fund­ing our schools. 

   The Depart­ment of Rev­enue says I‑732 would be rev­enue neg­a­tive. Car­bon­WA says don’t lis­ten to them, their math is wrong. OK… but what if Car­bon­WA’s math is also off? 

   The way I see it, Car­bon­WA can­not guar­an­tee rev­enue neu­tral­i­ty. They won’t be in charge of imple­ment­ing their idea, they’re just the sales­men (and sales­women) for it. 

   I’m left to won­der why they did­n’t try to inten­tion­al­ly make the ini­tia­tive slight­ly rev­enue pos­i­tive. I guess they were so intent on want­i­ng to sell the pub­lic a “rev­enue neu­tral” plan that they failed to appre­ci­ate that it might be a good idea to err on the side of caution. 

   Lis­ten, Car­bon­WA sup­port­ers, you are not enti­tled to the sup­port of Demo­c­ra­t­ic, pro­gres­sive, labor, and envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions for your plan. You have to earn it. Your com­ments on this thread leave me feel­ing very doubt­ful of your abil­i­ty to build a coali­tion to pass I‑732 this fall.

10. No one can (or should) claim to guar­an­tee rev­enue neu­tral­i­ty, and it’s noto­ri­ous­ly dif­fi­cult to cal­cu­late the effects of some­thing like this. Car­bon­WA points out a set of errors made by the state analy­sis that are unfor­tu­nate­ly rather arcane, but they make sense to me.

    You know, I was­n’t aware of this huge rift between the var­i­ous fac­tions until late Decem­ber. I live in East­ern Wash­ing­ton, where only some of the news makes over the moun­tains to us, and I still don’t get why there’s so much snip­ing going on. This prob­a­bly isn’t the place to explain it, but I wish I under­stood how it happened.

    Mean­while, I’ll wait patient­ly for Andrew, or any­one, to answer my ques­tions: What hap­pens next? What is the Alliance’s time­line? What will they do that will be bet­ter than what they are work­ing so hard to derail, and enough bet­ter that the lost time will be worthwhile?

11. It is math­e­mat­i­cal­ly easy to guar­an­tee rev­enue neu­tral­i­ty, but polit­i­cal­ly chal­leng­ing. Just wait an appro­pri­ate amount of time (1 month?)for the late quar­ter­ly B&O and sales tax­es to be col­lect­ed. Then cal­cu­late the loss in tax rev­enue due to the Car­bon WA reduc­tions in the sales and B&O tax­es. Com­pare that num­ber to the amount of car­bon tax col­lect­ed that quar­ter. The remain­der is what would be dis­persed as the Work­ing Fam­i­lies mon­ey. As the car­bon tax rev­enue fluc­tu­ates from quar­ter to quar­ter, so would dis­tri­b­u­tions to Work­ing Fam­i­lies. And that would make it polit­i­cal­ly chal­leng­ing because the peo­ple most in need would­n’t have a sta­ble source of funds. 

    I am sure the Alliance won’t have an ini­tia­tive on the Novem­ber bal­lot because the polling shows that two sep­a­rate ini­tia­tives on the same bal­lot would guar­an­tee that both would fail. Big Oil would have a field day bash­ing both and total­ly con­fus­ing the unde­cid­ed voters.

12. That’s a good point, Rich, although I’m not sure it’s pos­si­ble to use even one’s expect­ed Earned Income Tax Cred­it in finan­cial plan­ning, let alone the WFTR. 

    Tak­ing the time to read Car­bon­WA’s response to the state analy­sis (the third link at http://yeson732.org/lets-get-fiscal‑2/) is some­thing every­one with con­cerns over the rev­enue neu­tral­i­ty issue needs to do.

    Mean­while, I’ll wait patient­ly for Andrew, or any­one, to answer my ques­tions: What hap­pens next? What is the Alliance’s time­line? What will they do that will be bet­ter than what they are work­ing so hard to derail, and enough bet­ter that the lost time will be worthwhile?

13. IMO this state par­ty deci­sion adds its fair share to the total mess ongo­ing in the WA effort to get car­bon pric­ing. I see it as a crash of two reck­less trains. All we will have to show for it is blood.

    1. The many Where­as is this res­o­lu­tion wrap a moral and maybe exis­ten­tial respon­si­bil­i­ty to act local­ly on cli­mate change in local issues of equi­ty, over­all tax pol­i­cy, and ideas of a just tran­si­tion, call­ing final­ly for a jus­tice over­sight board. It sub­sumes cli­mate action in the pro­gres­sive cause and cre­ates a NIMBY tem­plate for cli­mate action any­where that does not bun­dle pro­gres­sive require­ments. It fails to accept the physics of cli­mate change. 

    2. If Andrew does not address Ramez’s (Com­ment 1) claims of mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion he shows this is not a seri­ous dis­cus­sion of issues. IMO both Car­bon­wa and Alliance mem­bers have spun each oth­er’s posi­tions all through the fias­co. When is enough?

    3. Nei­ther side has made pub­lic the com­pro­mise posi­tion the Alliance offered, which Car­bon­wa reject­ed on Dec 23. IMO this was the last chance to stay upright. The pub­lic has a right to see this doc­u­ment. We are at the bloody start of a glob­al grass roots fight for car­bon pric­ing, there is a lot to think through, we need to see the facts, not just the spin of the Alliance lead groups.

    4. For Car­bon­wa sup­port­ers like Thad and Steve, who opposed the com­pro­mise in Decem­ber, it was clear then that state Dems and unions would oppose I‑732. Now they have. Lib­er­tar­i­ans & Repub­li­cans shrug or laugh. Who will be in your coali­tion? Why did you reject the com­pro­mise bill for this fight, this year, here?

    5. Camil­la (Com­ment 2), IMO the Wheras list requires study as well as blan­ket con­dem­na­tion. Unless it is con­test­ed in detail, among pro­gres­sives, won’t it block cli­mate physics-ori­ent­ed pro­gres­sive cli­mate action everywhere?

    Lar­ry Gussin

14. It seems that sev­er­al of you who have com­ment­ed sim­ply did­n’t take the trou­ble to care­ful­ly read the post. This is advo­ca­cy jour­nal­ism, but even so, I stat­ed Car­bon­WA’s posi­tion repeat­ed­ly, and linked to their web­site, so that any­one read­ing could see what they had to say. 

    There are not one, not two, not three, but four links to posts and pages on Car­bon­WA’s web­site in this post. Any­one read­ing has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to click through and access their materials.

    The Alliance has­n’t decid­ed what it is doing next. We’d like to see them go to the bal­lot with an alter­na­tive to I‑732, but that may not happen.

15. I’ve fought to defend Cal­i­for­ni­a’s cap-and-trade sys­tem from the oil com­pa­ny attempt to repeal it at the 2010 bal­lot. We smashed them. Now cap-and-trade is bring­ing in bil­lions of dol­lars per year in rev­enue to help reduce CO2 emis­sions and build green infra­struc­ture in the world’s 7th largest economy.

    We should be ral­ly­ing behind a cap-and-trade pro­pos­al for WA. The Alliance made sig­nif­i­cant polit­i­cal mis­takes here.

    But Car­bon­WA made even worse mis­takes, both in the pol­i­tics as well as in the actu­al pol­i­cy. At a time when our schools are under­fund­ed, cut­ting $1 bil­lion from the state bud­get is unfor­giv­able. Even if it were tru­ly a “rev­enue-neu­tral” plan, that would itself be bad, because as I point­ed out in my Sep­tem­ber 2015 post oppos­ing I‑732, many experts real­ize that we need rev­enue pos­i­tive car­bon pric­ing sys­tems. Mar­ket mech­a­nisms won’t reduce CO2, we need green infra­struc­ture and thus we need the rev­enue to buy it.

    We all know that Car­bon­WA lead­ers can read polls. They know as well as we do that I‑732 will go down in flames and set back the cli­mate action move­ment in this state for years. Their deci­sion to sub­mit the sig­na­tures was reck­less and damaging.

    Kudos to the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, the Wash­ing­ton State Labor Coun­cil, and all the oth­er groups that will soon be lin­ing up to kill this bad idea.

16. I for­got to add in my com­ment (14) a reply to what Dan wrote in Com­ment 3. IMO it is very rea­son­able to advo­cate for the I‑732 mod­el over oth­er car­bon pric­ing mod­els. But to term it “orders of mag­ni­tude more mean­ing­ful than California’s AB32” shows either igno­rance of or dis­re­spect for the hard-fought and hard-pro­tect­ed vic­to­ry AB 32 rep­re­sents. Read the NRDC and EDF eval­u­a­tions. See how much of the CA econ­o­my it sub­jects to car­bon pric­ing. Com­pare the exten­sive coali­tion they built to what we so far have here.

17. “Advo­ca­cy jour­nal­ism.” That would be the prob­lem, right there. We’re on Andrew’s blog, but I’m not going to sin­gle him out. He’s just one of too many who seem to be try­ing to win some kind of lit­tle game. If the base issue — cli­mate change — weren’t so impor­tant, it’d all be good fun. What has hap­pened is not fun.

    I was­n’t aware of the Alliance-Car­bon­WA trou­ble until about 5 weeks ago, and sud­den­ly it risks crash­ing the only thing, and a good thing at that, Wash­ing­ton’s go going in the cli­mate change department. 

    Car­bon­WA has a face: Yoram Bau­man. Some­one told me in Lyn­nwood that “he’s an ass.” That has­n’t been my expe­ri­ence, but why even care? Who is the face of the Alliance — their pup­pet­mas­ter, as it would seem? I have some words for that person.

    If I‑732 is doomed to fail, why not sup­port it, or just sit on your hands? By oppos­ing it with all the shady tricks of “advo­ca­cy jour­nal­ism” and back-room deals (and what hap­pened in Lyn­nwood was a back-room deal), when his­to­ry appor­tions blame for Wash­ing­ton bring­ing up the rear in cli­mate action, the Alliance will get the lion’s share.

    I’ll con­tin­ue to wait patient­ly for Andrew, or any­one, to answer my ques­tions: What hap­pens next? What is the Alliance’s time­line? What will they do that will be bet­ter than what they are work­ing so hard to derail, and enough bet­ter that the lost time will be worthwhile?

18. Pol­i­tics isn’t a game to us, Steve. Here at the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate (which is the voice of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute as a whole) we com­ment on cur­rent events and pub­lic pol­i­cy. We’ve been doing it since March of 2004. And unlike oth­er pub­li­ca­tions, we don’t pre­tend to be objec­tive. The beau­ty of advo­ca­cy jour­nal­ism is that you can see where some­body stands. 

    We believe, as an orga­ni­za­tion, that Car­bon­WA’s approach is wrong, and we there­fore can­not sup­port I‑732. NPI Pres­i­dent Robert Cruick­shank and I have explained, in detail on numer­ous occa­sions, why we have come to that conclusion.

    We don’t make deci­sions for the Alliance. These are the folks who do, and you should direct your ques­tions to them.

    The Alliance for Jobs & Clean Ener­gy Steer­ing Committee

    • De’Sean Quinn | African Amer­i­can Community
    • Renee Klein | Amer­i­can Lung Asso­ci­a­tion of the Moun­tain Pacific
    • Tony Lee | Asian Pacif­ic Islander Coalition
    • Vlad Gut­man | Cli­mate Solutions
    • Aiko Schae­fer, Com­mu­ni­ties of Col­or for Cli­mate Justice
    • Ros­alin­da Guillen | Com­mu­ni­ty to Community
    • Cheri Cor­nell | CoolMom
    • LeeAnne Beres | Earth Ministry/Washington Inter­faith Pow­er & Light
    • Mark Liff­mann | Envi­ron­men­tal Entrepreneurs
    • Jill Man­gal­i­man | Got Green
    • Peter Bloch-Gar­cia | Lati­no Com­mu­ni­ty Fund
    • Per­ry Eng­land | MacDonald-Miller
    • Nan­cy Hirsh | North­west Ener­gy Coalition
    • Rich Stolz | OneAmerica
    • Rob­by Stern | Puget Sound Advo­cates for Retire­ment Action
    • Rebec­ca Sal­dana | Puget Sound Sage
    • Kel­ly Hall | Renew­able Northwest
    • Adam Glick­man | SEIU 775
    • Bill Arthur | Sier­ra Club
    • Rob John­son | Trans­porta­tion Choic­es Coalition
    • Daryl Williams | Tulalip Tribe
    • Jason Bar­bose | Union of Con­cerned Scientists
    • Sarah Cherin |UFCW 21
    • Bren­na Davis | Wash­ing­ton Busi­ness­es for Cli­mate Action
    • Mauri­cio Ayon | Wash­ing­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Action Network
    • Shan­non Mur­phy | Wash­ing­ton Con­ser­va­tion Voters
    • Becky Kel­ley | Wash­ing­ton Envi­ron­men­tal Council
    • Sarah Clifthorne | Wash­ing­ton Fed­er­a­tion of State Employees
    • Ken Lans | Wash­ing­ton Physi­cians for Social Responsibility
    • Jeff John­son | Wash­ing­ton State Labor Coun­cil, AFL-CIO

    I will send you the con­tact infor­ma­tion for the staff per­son who han­dles the Alliance’s business.

19. Just a quick note to thank Lar­ry Gussin for his astute comments. 

20. Com­ment­ing on the pol­i­tics of the sit­u­a­tion, rather than the mer­its or demer­its of 732, this is a risky course for the state Dems and main­stream pro­gres­sive and envi­ro groups. There is already a sig­nif­i­cant dis­con­nect between the polit­i­cal pro­fes­sion­als and grass­roots activists. The pro­fes­sion­als mis­cal­cu­lat­ed the grass­roots urgency to get some­thing done on cli­mate, and so when the Inslee cli­mate bill failed had noth­ing to put in its place. Car­bon­WA lit­er­al­ly seized the ini­tia­tive and gen­uine­ly mobi­lized a move­ment. The pro­fes­sion­als fur­ther mis­cal­cu­lat­ed that a cam­paign that start­ed out with lim­it­ed fund­ing and a large­ly vol­un­teer base could not get enough sig­na­tures. Instead the cam­paign raised $600K and gath­ered 100,000 more sig­na­tures than need­ed. I think the par­ty and the groups risk a back­lash. It will cer­tain­ly feed an enthu­si­asm gap that could have impli­ca­tions in a close election.

21. I want to add that 732 would not be my pre­ferred option. There is a strong point for invest­ing car­bon rev­enues in clean ener­gy and tran­si­tion from fos­sil fuels. The tragedy is that the gov­er­nor and the groups missed the boat. If they had believed enough in their ideas they should have had some­thing up, and Car­bon­WA would have pulled. But that did­n’t hap­pen, and it seems from that point this con­flict was baked in the cake.

22. Pingback: opposing the carbon tax | urbdp598

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