CarbonWA's initiative I-732 qualifies
This week we’ve got official confirmation that I-732 has qualified (!), a final 250 Club update, the unveiling of our new website (yeson732.org), and a great editorial on carbon pricing in the NY Times.
I-732 qualifies!
We will share the official document with you when it’s released, but for now we have (what else?) a Twitter post from the Secretary of State’s office that I-732 was certified, plus an email that their 3% sampling procedure “projected 262,940 valid signatures, well above the required 246,372”. Great work everyone—staff, interns, volunteers, donors—and a great segue to our final 250 Club update (with the caveat that you should let me know if we’ve mistakenly left you off the list!).
250 Club update
Congratulations to our new members of the 250 Club (and please contact us if you don’t already have your CarbonWA t-shirt!): Amity Kramer in Seattle and Jan Keller, Carol Reich, and Mary Saylor in east King County. They join previous 250 Club members Heidi Cody in Vancouver; Bob Hallahan and Judy Kaplan on Whidbey Island; Gretchen Allison and Kay Keeler on San Juan Island; Cindy Jayne and Dick Stockment in Port Townsend; Martha Bishop and Barb Zimmer from Climate Action Bainbridge; three supporters in Yakima (Peter Dufault, Chuck Foster, and Eleanor Hungate); five supporters from east King County (Bob Ellis, France Giddings, Eric Hanson, Rob Marsh, and Marilyn Mayers); six supporters from Olympia (Tom Holtz, Jennifer Miller, Carole Richmond, Susan Sunshine, Frank Turner, and Jack Zeigler); two supporters from Bellingham (Amy Nielson and Rosa Rice-Pelepko), and 26 people in Seattle (Morgane Arriola at UW Seattle, Julia Bent, Kyle Conyers, Chris Covert-Bowlds, John C., Alex Dolk, Keith Ervin, Bruce Flory, Polly Freeman, Savannah Kinzer, Lindsey Klemp, Sean Kraft, Raphael Ladmer-Price, Galen LaPlante, Alex Lenferna, Scott McClay, Phil Mitchell, Todd Mitchell, Margaret Moore, Trevor Partington, Nancy Penrose, Mishu Pham-Whipple, Bill Roach, Mike Ruby, Phil Singer, and Ed Watcher).
Double congratulations to folks who have hit 500 signatures: David Scheer and Joe Wiederhold from Bellingham and David Chapin, Court Olson, and George Reynoldson in east King County. They join Ed Chadd in Port Angeles, Gary Piazzon on Whidbey Island, Scott Finley on San Juan Island, Larry Lowther in Ellensburg; Chom Greacen from Lopez Island; Betty Hauser in Olympia; three supporters from east King County (Chris Diehl, Laura Rivendell, and staffer Jason Puracal); four members from Climate Action Bainbridge (Bruce Bonifaci, Frank Gremse, Omie Kerr, and Alex Mezentsev); five supporters from Bellingham (Andy Day, David Gary, Anna Paulson, Kayta Tourtillot, and Andew Zvilna); and nine supporters in Seattle (Robin Briggs, Megan Conaway, Ron Lindsey, John Lombard, JL, Tim Newcomb, Anne Shields, Fritz Wollett, and campaign co-director Duncan Clauson).
Quadruple congratulations to Ben Larson and John Whitmer from Bellingham for passing 1,000+ signatures. They join Louise Stonington from east King County; Ande Finley from Lopez Island; Thad Curtz and Penny Purkerson in Olympia; Dave Hopkinson and staffers David Jackman and Rheanna Johnston in Bellingham; six supporters from Climate Action Bainbridge (Brian Anderson, Herb Hethcote, Cheryl Hunter, Gerlind Jenkner, Mary Clare Kersten, and Erika Shriner); and 11 folks from Seattle (David Foutch, Bob Jeffers-Schroeder, Mike Massa, Alan Ness, Ben Pfeiffer, Julia Robinson, Aaron Tam at UW Seattle, yours truly, campaign co-director Kyle Murphy, and Seattle staffers Ben Silesky and Laurel Wolf). And extra bonus congratulations for folks with 2000+ signatures (Cheryl Hunter, Julia Robinson, and campaign co-director Kyle Murphy, joining Ben Pfeiffer and Gerlind Jenkner), folks with 3000+ signatures (staffers Ben Silesky and Laurel Wolf), and Bob Jeffers-Schroeder with over 4000!
New website
Check out our new website at yeson732.org. Please send feedback to duncan@carbonwa.org, and thanks to Duncan, to our “communications QB” Bill Boyd, and to web designer Warren Curkendall for bringing this to life!
In the news
Top of the list is the fabulous NYT editorial “Proof That a Price on Carbon Works”: “British Columbia started taxing emissions in 2008. One big appeal of its system is that it is essentially revenue-neutral… Researchers have found that the tax helped cut emissions but has had no negative impact on the province’s growth rate, which has been about the same or slightly faster than the country as a whole in recent years.”
In other news: Last year (2015) was by far the hottest year on record (see also the NYT and this visual from Bloomberg). Bloomberg also has “Watch Elon Musk and Exxon Finally Agree on Something”, and there’s a new carbon pricing study from World Resources Institute; see the WRI blog on “A Carbon Price Will Reduce Emissions More than Computer Models Predict” and note that this relates to the EIA studies that we’ve discussed previously. News specifically about Carbon Washington includes this Niskanen Center blog by Shi-Ling Hsu and Bloomberg’s “Tom Steyer Battles Green Frenemies in the Pacific Northwest”. More news from Olympia next week, and If you haven’t already done so please write your legislators… and if you have already written them then don’t hesitate to contact them again to make sure they’re in the loop on recent developments!