Posted at http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/11/07/stories/1060045351
Benjamin Storrow, E&E reporter
Published: Monday, November 7, 2016
For months, a Washington state ballot measure seeking to impose America’s first carbon tax simmered behind the scenes in the Pacific Northwest. Now, as the campaign hurtles toward a tumultuous conclusion, it has been thrust to the forefront of the nationwide debate over climate change.
A who’s who of climate change figures have inserted themselves into the fight in the final weeks of the campaign. Leonardo DiCaprio tweeted his support. The Koch brothers signaled their opposition in the form of a $50,000 donation to the “no” campaign. James Hansen, the prominent climate scientist and former director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, penned an op-ed in The Seattle Times encouraging residents to vote “yes.”
The sudden glare of the national spotlight has brought the stakes in Washington into sharp relief, both opponents and supporters say. Efforts to institute a carbon tax at the federal level have received scant political support. Washington presents an opportunity for supporters of a carbon tax to reset the political conversation, providing a template for how to price carbon.
“It seems to be the only path forward because we can’t get the federal government to do it,” Hansen said in an interview.
Opponents are also eyeing the Evergreen State with the knowledge that what happens there has the potential to reverberate elsewhere. A state-based carbon tax will have minimal impact on climate but will cost jobs and lead to higher prices at the pump, said Chrissy Harbin, federal affairs director for Americans for Prosperity, an advocacy group backed by the Koch brothers.
She attributed the Washington campaign to climate activists’ inability to garner political support in Congress. Americans for Prosperity hasn’t participated in the Washington race, but, Harbin added, “These state-based carbon taxes are something we’re watching because of the implications they have at the national level.”
The mounting attention comes with polls showing wide swaths of the Washington electorate undecided on the question. An Oct. 24 poll gave the “yes” campaign a 40 to 32 percent lead, but 28 percent of the survey’s respondents said they were undecided. A poll from earlier in the month put the undecided figure at 21 percent.
Much of the uncertainty stems from the deep schism in the environmental community and among Democrats. Climate Solutions, the Washington Environmental Council and the Washington Sierra Club are opposed to the plan; Audubon Washington is in favor of it. Gov. Jay Inslee (D) has come out against the measure; U.S. Rep Jim McDermott, a Seattle liberal, is backing it.
Even Seattle’s influential alt-weekly The Stranger has been publicly divided on the question. After the publication endorsed the proposal, a group of editors opposed to the plan wrote an op-ed saying their concerns had been overridden by the paper’s publisher.
A very personal fight over revenue neutrality
A great deal of the controversy is personal. Some greens had hoped to put their own version of a carbon tax on the ballot this fall but were unable to come to an agreement with CarbonWA, the group behind the plan (ClimateWire, Oct. 17).
Initiative 732, as the question is officially known, is revenue neutral. It calls for imposing a $25 per ton price on carbon in 2018. The price would increase by 3.5 percent annually, adjusting for inflation, before topping out at $100 a ton by midcentury. To compensate for the rising fees, the proposal would cut the state sales tax, eliminate a tax on gross receipts for manufacturers and provide an annual tax refund of up to $1,500 to low-income families.
Green opponents say revenue from a tax should be spent on renewables and climate mitigation, aiding minority communities susceptible to flooding and fossil fuel workers who could lose their jobs. Many express worries about the plan’s fiscal impact.
Supporters say the budgetary concerns are overblown and argue green opponents are most interested in adorning a climate plan with liberal policy objectives than fighting a global rise in temperature.
Against that backdrop, national opponents and supporters have pumped money into the campaign during its final weeks. The “no” campaign, coordinated by the Association of Washington Business, has collected nearly $1 million in the last two weeks, campaign finance records show.
That includes two donations totaling $400,000 from Kaiser Aluminum; $250,000 from the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers; $100,000 from Puget Sound Energy; and $50,000 from Koch Industries.
The billionaire natural gas trader John Arnold and his wife Laura have contributed $250,000 to Audubon Washington in recent weeks, bringing supporters’ total campaign contributions to around $2.2 million.
Yet more worrying for greens, perhaps, is a growing national fissure over Initiative 732.
Rebuild the Dream, a nonprofit founded by President Obama’s former clean job czar, Van Jones, kicked in $10,000 in online advertising opposing the proposal (Greenwire, Nov. 4).
In a national call with reporters last week, Jones said, “I have never, ever opposed a single climate bill, proposal, comma, semicolon … but I am opposing this one because it is that bad. It is just that bad.”
A first step?
Some have argued a carbon tax on its own is ineffectual. They point to neighboring British Columbia, Canada, which imposed a fee on carbon in 2008, saying it has failed to tamper the growth of carbon emissions.
Hansen, who was one of the first scientists to raise alarm on climate during the 1980s, labeled those concerns “total bullshit.”
Unlike the Washington plan, where the price on carbon would rise overtime, British Columbia’s tax is capped at 30 Canadian dollars ($22.38). The provincial tax led to a significant reduction in emissions in its early years, but those gains have been offset by falling oil prices more recently, he said.
National conservatives will never accept a carbon tax that spends money on liberal priorities, Hansen added.
“A logical compromise would be a revenue-neutral rising carbon fee,” he said. “If we have a demonstration that this actually works in one state, it would make it highly likely that it would be adopted as a national approach.”
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