Gov. Jay Inslee’s passion has been to get Washington to the forefront of fighting climate change. And for five years, a Republican-controlled Senate has stopped him.
But now, Inslee and his allies have the narrowest of margins in the Legislature to actually tackle climate change: 50-48 in the House and 25-24 in the Senate. That has unleashed a flurry of bills to battle climate change with decent chances of passing. However, one Democrat nay vote can stop any one of those bills.
These bills could raise your gasoline prices at the pump, trim pollution, help farmers irrigate their crops, guard Washington’s shellfish industry, create small passenger planes powered by electricity, boost the use of electric cars, and thumb the state’s nose at the Trump administration.
This legislative session sees Inslee pushing a tax on carbon emissions of $20 per ton, which most Democrats will support, but faces a tough road to pick up all 50 House Democrats. Also, bills are at play to boost the number of electric cars and electric airliners. And there is a chance that Washington could join the 2015 Paris climate accords independently of the rest of the United States.
Here is a breakdown of what could happen in this legislative session.
Carbon Tax
Here’s the big one. Inslee has proposed a new $20-per-ton tax on carbon emissions starting July 1, 2019. It is expected to increase gasoline prices by 4 percent to 9 percent in 2020, within the normal fluctuation of gas prices due to several ongoing economic factors, according to Inslee’s staff. It would raise $1.5 billion over the first two years. Sen. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle and Rep. Joe Fitzgibbons, D-Burien, have introduced parallel bills to put Inslee’s plan into effect.
Meanwhile, Washington’s Supreme Court’s McCleary ruling has required the state to upgrade the quality of education in Grades K-3, which has sparked five years of legislative deadlocks and wrangling. Last year, the court ruled that the state needed to complete its fix-it work by June 30, 2018, which translated to the Legislature appropriating an extra $1 billion in this session. Under Inslee’s plan, the $1 billion needed to meet the McCleary deadline would come from the state reserves this year. Those reserves would be replenished in subsequent years with the first $1 billion to $1.5 billion raised by the carbon tax.
Legislative Republicans don’t want to address the shortfall this session. Democrats don’t expect to come up with their own plan to raise that final $1 billion until early February. Consequently, Inslee’s proposal is the only one in play, and it will need every single Democrat’s vote to pass bills to raise the final $1 billion. In past years, House Democrats could not drum up the needed 50 votes within their own caucus to take similar bills to a full floor vote. Some moderate Democrats in rural swing districts fret about such a tax’s effect on gas prices and on agricultural plants in their districts.
Republicans leaders oppose the carbon tax. Senate Minority Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, described a carbon tax as a “bait-and-switch” — ballyhooing the tax’s goals to pass it this year and then unfairly using it for other purposes in future years.
“This will be a $1.5 billion slush fund to hand out money to Solyndra 2.0,” said Rep Drew Stokesbary, R-Auburn. Solyndra was a California high-tech solar panel manufacturer with a $535 million federal loan guarantee. It went bankrupt in 2011, followed by federal investigations that it misled the feds to obtain the $535 million loan guarantee.
A factor in a carbon tax bill’s favor is that both sides dread the issue of a carbon tax going to a public ballot in referendum. Special interests and legislators believe it is better to tackle controversial legislation in Olympia where numerous nuances can be addressed, while a public ballot is viewed with as a blunt instrument that cannot be tweaked by anyone. Consequently, if the GOP and business interests believe a carbon tax initiative is likely to pass in November, it would be in their best interest to work out a compromise in Olympia by early March.
Adopting California’s vehicle emission standards
California requires that 4.5 percent of manufactured vehicles delivered to the state this year produce zero carbon emissions—such as electric and hydrogen-fueled cars and small trucks. That is supposed to increase to 9.5 percent by 2020 and to 22 percent by 2025. A bill by Rep. Jeff Morris, D- Mount Vernon would have Washington adopt that standard.
The state ecology department and some environmental organizations support the bill. “It will improve air quality and improve public health,” said Stu Clark, the Washington ecology department’s air quality program manager. Inslee has a goal of having 50,000 electric vehicles owned by Washington residents by 2020. Right now, the state has about 25,000 with slightly more than half in King County.
At a recent hearing, representatives of Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers opposed the bill. They contended that Washington is one the top states in sales of zero-emissions vehicles. The alliance’s figures say 4.9 percent of auto sales in California in 2017 were zero-emissions vehicles. Hawaii had the second-highest percentage at 2.6 percent, and Washington was third at 2.5 percent. The national average in 2017 was 1.19 percent.
The alliance’s representatives argued that supplying zero-emissions cars—much more expensive than gasoline-powered vehicles—to auto dealers does not guarantee the carbon-free cars will sell. “The problem is not a lack of a mandate. It’s a lack of customers,” said alliance representative Steve Douglas. Another problem is that Washington has a limited number of public charging stations to serve electric and hybrid-electric cars.
Most of the state’ charging stations are in the Interstate 5 corridor with few East of I-5. A charging station costs about $100,000 to install, but state officials calculate that a charging station owner needs roughly 10 years to recoup that investment since electricity is much cheaper mileage-wise than gasoline. The state is looking into providing financial help to increase the number of charging stations across Washington.
Will Washington lead the nation in switching to electric and hybrid-electric passenger planes?
Rep. Vandana Slatter, D-Bellevue had introduced a bill to require 30 percent of the commercial flights of between 100 to 1,000 miles leaving and arriving in Washington to be at least partially powered by electric propulsion systems as an anti-pollution measure and an economic way to return commercial flights to small airports. “Electric aviation will turn back the clock to a lost age for small town America,” Slatter said.
Bellevue-based Zunum Aero hopes to have a small electric airliner plane ready for commercial use by 2022.
However, the bill was changed in committee to require to the state transportation department set up a work group to set goals for the use of electric airlines in the state for 2030, 2040, 2050.
Will Washington join the 2015 Paris climate accords?
Last year, President Donald Trump pulled the United States from the Paris climate accords, making it the only nation in the world not participating in it.
Slatter has introduced a bill to have Washington comply with the accords, despite the federal government’s stance. The bill would require Washington to limit greenhouse to 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.