9 votes

Bill Gates backs Washington State's carbon-fee Initiative 1631 to fight what may be 'toughest problem humanity has ever faced'

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  1. spit-evil-olive-tips
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    This has been much discussed locally here in Washington but probably hasn't filtered too much out to the rest of the country or world. This would be the first state in the US to institute any sort...

    This has been much discussed locally here in Washington but probably hasn't filtered too much out to the rest of the country or world. This would be the first state in the US to institute any sort of carbon tax.

    Background from Ballotpedia and Wikipedia, article from August in The Atlantic and the actual text (pdf) of the initiative if you're a masochist about reading legalese like I am.

    A previous attempt, I-732, was defeated by a 60/40 margin in 2016. A lot of the criticism of I-1631 (such as from Cliff Mass, a meteorologist at UW) has focused on how the revenue would be spent - I-732 did a mostly-revenue-neutral "tax swap" where sales taxes would have been cut at the same time the carbon tax was phased in. Instead, I-1631 creates a board of elected officials who will decide how the money will be spent, and gives them rough guidance on how.

    Rather predictably, the vote no campaign, funded by the oil and gas industry, brings up as one of their main complaints...that it exempts large polluters:

    I-1631 would exempt many of our state’s largest polluters, including a huge coal-fired power plant, iron, steel and aluminum industries, pulp and paper mills, aircraft manufacturers, chemical manufacturers and many other large corporate emitters. Additional exemptions may be added at any time. In fact, 8 of the state’s top 12 carbon emitters would be exempt from 1631, while consumers and small businesses would pay billions.

    According to a Seattle Times fact check, the coal-fired plant is exempt because it's already planning to shut down by 2025. This seems to me like an extremely bad argument - they're saying vote no because it makes exemptions, but presumably if the bill had no exemptions they would oppose it for not making any exemptions and painting with too broad a brush.

    2 votes