This fall, climate is on the ballot. That’s just the truth.

It’s true nationally, and even internationally. Former President Trump has made clear that if re-elected, he will pull the United States out of the United Nations Paris Climate Agreement. He will roll back the transition to clean energy sources and open federal lands to a free-for-all of extraction: mining, drilling, fracking, you name it.

But it’s particularly true in the state of Washington, where a historic climate law is at risk of being repealed. In 2021, our state legislators passed the Climate Commitment Act (CCA), which is the nation’s strongest carbon pricing legislation.     

Essentially, the law puts a cap on carbon emissions and makes polluters pay to pollute. Polluters must buy credits at periodic auctions in order to continue to burn dirty fossil fuels. Over time, the pollution cap and the credits will decrease.

In simple terms: Polluters pay, communities benefit!

The money generated by these carbon credit auctions funds projects that help people already struggling with climate chaos, that help farmers and businesses transition to clean energy, that make our transportation and transit sector more efficient, and hundreds of other things, in every corner of our state. 

The CCA officially launched in January 2023. In the short time since then, it has already raised more than $2 billion to help our state begin the transformational change demanded by a worsening climate.

Now, a wealthy, far-right multimillionaire hedge fund manager who moved here from California to evade taxes has used $6 million of his own money to pay to gather signatures and put this harmful initiative on the November ballot. 

Initiative 2117 would repeal the CCA. Not only that, but I-2117 would prohibit our state from ever passing another carbon pricing law in the future. Risking billions of dollars, jobs, health benefits we need to transition to a clean energy economy.

Repealing the CCA will hurt working families, farmers, foresters, and ecosystems. It will have health consequences for people living in communities that already suffer more from pollution. It will affect water quality, salmon streams, schools, young transit riders and more. 

You can find a complete list of what the CCA has funded, but here is a sampling of what we may lose if we lose the CCA:

• Modernization and electrification of the state’s aging and beleaguered ferry system, such as five new electric-hybrid ferries and a new electric ferry to replace the 45-year-old ferry between Anacortes and Guemes Island.
• The state Sustainable Farms and Fields program and others, which help make it easier, cheaper and more profitable to adopt practices such as climate-smart livestock management, composting, and soil conservation.
• Free Amtrak, ferry and public transit for youth under 18, good for the planet and good for families.
• 100% electric school buses so students on the way to class don’t risk breathing air four times more polluted than the air outside. 
• Safer crosswalks and sidewalks for those who walk or roll to school.
• Projects focused on making port and rail transport of goods more efficient and cleaner, such as subsidies to make electric trucks affordable for drayage drivers, many of who are immigrants of moderate income.
• Funds to help tens of thousands of families with low or moderate incomes transition to more efficient home systems, such as heat pumps, electric water heaters and better insulation.
• Planting more trees in urban areas to reduce the impact of dangerous heat waves.
• Programs to improve air quality in communities that suffer the most from asthma and other health problems related to the burning of fossil fuels.
• A range of decarbonization projects that make it easier and more affordable for communities, industries, buildings and businesses become more energy efficient, transition to clean energy or reduce fossil fuel use.
• Tens of millions to help Tribes, and other communities that already suffer because climate change.

The CCA has made all this possible, plus tens of thousands of EV charging stations, electric bikes for low-income families, and more. It’s hard to imagine a person in Washington who won’t benefit in some way from the CCA.

Those organizing to repeal the CCA call it a “hidden gas tax.” But if the cynical, right-wing millionaires and billionaires behind I-2117 succeed in rolling back decades of climate progress, it will be as if they’ve created an “everything tax.” 

Polluters and super-rich guys will win. You will lose.

Vote NO on I-2117