NO on I‑2117 launches new website and video urging Washingtonians to defend the Climate Commitment Act

The broad, diverse, and grow­ing coali­tion to defeat Ini­tia­tive 2117 today unveiled a new web­site as well as a launch video lay­ing out the case for vot­ing NO on Bri­an Hey­wood and Jim Wal­sh’s attempt to repeal the Cli­mate Com­mit­ment Act this autumn.

“Wash­ing­ton State can’t afford I‑2117,” the coali­tion explained. “It would allow more pol­lu­tion and cut invest­ments in com­mu­ni­ty pri­or­i­ties across our state like trans­porta­tion and tran­sit ser­vice and pre­vent­ing wildfires.”

“If I‑2117 pass­es, it would allow more pol­lu­tion and shift the bur­den of pay­ing for the impacts of pol­lu­tion onto com­mu­ni­ties, work­ers, and fam­i­lies — while cut­ting invest­ments in clean air and water, trans­porta­tion, wild­fire pre­ven­tion, and a lot more.”

Wash­ing­to­ni­ans from across the Ever­green State are fea­tured in the video urg­ing a no vote, includ­ing from Cen­tral and East­ern Wash­ing­ton. (My favorite is Jason Shee­han, a farmer from Sun­ny­side, who spoke to why I‑2117 is bad for agriculture.) 

You can watch the video here:

NPI is proud to have made a con­tri­bu­tion to this most excel­lent project: we donat­ed the domain for the coali­tion’s new web­site, no2117.com. We’re delight­ed it’s now in use.

I‑2117’s poten­tial for destruc­tion is incred­i­bly severe, and that’s why defeat­ing it this autumn is a top pri­or­i­ty for NPI and many oth­er orga­ni­za­tions that care about Wash­ing­ton’s future. On a destruc­tive­ness scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most destruc­tive, I‑2117 is a ten in our book, because of the spi­ral of destruc­tion it would create.

I‑2117 does­n’t just seek to repeal the Cli­mate Com­mit­ment Act — it seeks to pre­vent law­mak­ers from rein­stat­ing a cap and invest sys­tem for at least sev­er­al years. 

Take a look at the text of the initiative:

NEW SECTION. Sec 1. All state agen­cies are pro­hib­it­ed from imple­ment­ing any type of car­bon tax cred­it trad­ing, also known as “cap and trade” or “cap and tax” scheme, includ­ing the cli­mate com­mit­ment act pre­vi­ous­ly cod­i­fied as chap­ter 70A.65 RCW. This pro­hi­bi­tion applies whether the result­ing increased costs are imposed on fuel recip­i­ents or fuel suppliers.

If I‑2117 were to pass, it would be unchange­able except by a two-thirds vote of the Leg­is­la­ture for two years, in accor­dance with Arti­cle II of the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion. Unless Democ­rats also gained very large majori­ties, Repub­li­cans would have the votes to pre­vent this lan­guage from being tak­en out of state law for mul­ti­ple sessions.

This is by design. 

Decep­tive­ly, when Bri­an Hey­wood and Jim Walsh turned in sig­na­tures for I‑2117, Hey­wood said: “We prob­a­bly agree with our friends over here on the left quite a bit… in that we want the plan­et to be clean. We want a safe and clean envi­ron­ment. We don’t want pol­luters to get off scot-free.” 

We have his remarks on video — take a look:

Con­sid­er that Hey­wood and Wal­sh’s I‑2117 would (a) repeal the Cli­mate Com­mit­ment Act, (b) bar sim­ple majori­ties of the Leg­is­la­ture from rein­stat­ing it, and (c) pur­pose­ly not replace it with any­thing. Hey­wood and Walsh do not have their own cli­mate action plan. They’ve offered noth­ing. We’ve got Hey­wood on record say­ing “we don’t want pol­luters to get off scot-free” — but I‑2117 has been explic­it­ly writ­ten to elim­i­nate Wash­ing­ton State’s main tool for ensur­ing they don’t get off scot-free. 

Hey­wood has also told reporters he’s not a politi­cian, so he’s off the hook with respect to propos­ing an alter­na­tive pol­i­cy. (Sor­ry, Bri­an, that’s not how this works. You decid­ed to become a politi­cian when you sunk mil­lions of dol­lars into a slate of ini­tia­tives.)

Pro­po­nents’ decep­tive­ness does­n’t stop there.

Hey­wood and Walsh speak loud­ly of get­ting rid of a “hid­den” gas tax. But it’s essen­tial to know that I‑2117 does­n’t require oil com­pa­nies to low­er their prices. 

There is no lan­guage in the ini­tia­tive that requires the fos­sil fuel indus­try to give Wash­ing­to­ni­ans a price break on gaso­line going for­ward.

So, to recap: I‑2117 would roll back progress we’ve made on clean­ing up our air, water, and soil. It would elim­i­nate bil­lions of dol­lars of invest­ments in clean ener­gy and mul­ti­modal trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture. And it won’t do what its back­ers claim it will. 

It deserves not just to be reject­ed, but emphat­i­cal­ly rejected.

Join us in vot­ing NO on I‑2117. Let’s send this awful mea­sure to the state’s polit­i­cal grave­yard of bad ideas where it belongs.