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.
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