Petitions delivered to drop WA’s carbon pricing system

Opponents of Washington’s fledgling carbon pricing system on Tuesday turned in 418,399 signatures to the Secretary of State’s Office on a petition to repeal the program.

The petition needs at least 324,516 valid signatures by Dec. 29 to go to the Legislature. If the Legislature takes no action, it will appear on the November 2024 ballot as a referendum.

“We’re going to give the voters a chance to vote it down,” said Brian Heywood, leader of the effort, at a press conference in Kent in front of a trailer filled with signature pages. Heywood, a hedge fund manager, is providing more than 80% of the petition drive’s budget, according to Let’s Go Washington’s Web site. 

Since January, Washington’s cap-and-invest program has held pollution allowance auctions aimed at reducing Washington emissions. Opponents blame the cap-and-invest program for Washington’s high gasoline prices, saying oil companies are passing on their auction costs at the pump. 

A recent Crosscut analysis showed that numerous factors beyond the cap-and-invest system are affecting Washington’s gasoline prices.

The petition “will be dead on arrival,“ said Sen. Joe Nguyen, D-White Center and chairman of the Senate’s Energy & Environment Committee, last week. The initiative would have to go through his committee.

Heywood said public ballot measures for a cap-and-trade program were defeated before the Legislature passed the cap-and invest program in 2021. “The Legislature said ‘F U’ to the voters and it is saying ‘F U’ again,” Heywood said in response to hostility from the Democrat-controlled Legislature toward the petition.

Nguyen said the petitioners are unaware of the cap-and-invest program’s benefits and that the 2021 law is the result of compromises reached among environmentalists, advocates of disadvantaged communities and the business community, including some of the oil industry. He also contended the petition’s backers are climate-change deniers.

“Of course, climate change exists. Of course, humans cause climate change. I’m just not a member of the mother-breathing Church of Gaia,” Heywood said. He later added: “This money is going to the political friends and allies of the governor. To be honest, this is a money grab.” 

In an email, Gov. Jay Inslee’s spokesman Mike Faulk said: “As for the false claim about how auction revenue is spent, if he can’t back it up then it’s not even worth printing. We’ve been more than happy to share with folks where the funds are going.”

The cap-and-invest program is on track to raise almost $2 billion in 2023. So far, $300 million has been appropriated to 188 projects.