Is a carbon tax in Washington State’s future?

Washingtonians have had a front row seat in the pews of the Church of the Extreme Green Activists. Between our very green, “green” governor and the network of far-Left organizations that funneled over a million dollars into electing him in 2012, working families are constantly bombarded with liberals’ latest “plan” to combat global warming.

Of course, the extreme green plans pushed by liberals always have certain problems that end in the same result: they don’t actually work as promised, but they do cost a lot of money, and put a bigger government more in control of our lives.

Voters this November will face the latest example of a pricey extreme “green” policy that doesn’t actually work in the form of Initiative 732, the so-called “revenue neutral” carbon tax. I-732 would place a $25-per-metric-ton tax on carbon emissions from fossil fuels, along with multiple tax cuts to supposedly offset the new revenue.

If voters pass I-732, our state will become first in the nation to have such a carbon tax. Backers billed the scheme as revenue neutral, but that’s not the case. As Shift reported, the initiative would reduce state revenue by $915 million over four years. That’s up from an earlier estimate that pegged the four-year budget hit at $675 million.

During the 2016 legislative session, some of I-732’s own supporters requested that state lawmakers deliver another option for voters because, as they were forced to admit, the plan is flawed.

State lawmakers had the option to pass the measure as is and make it a law, ignore it and let it go to the ballot in November, or send it and an alternative plan both to the ballot. Lawmakers chose to take the risk and ignore the initiative in hopes that voters reject the risky experiment.

Being first in the nation with a bad idea is bad enough. Now the question is, how far will I-732 backers go to push an initiative they know is flawed?

The initiative’s flaws came to light at the beginning of March. Since then, I-732 backers have continued to fundraise for their “Carbon Washington” campaign. In fact, I-732 raised nearly $30,000 in the month of March alone.

Carbon Washington spent nearly $12,000 to hire GreatWork Strategic Communications for “communications consulting.” The campaign spent nearly another $12,000 hiring NGP VAN, a company that prides itself in helping “progressive campaigns” leverage technology (i.e., sells them identified voter lists) to meet their goals. Both these expenditures occurred in March.

Given the numbers, it’s clear that the Carbon Washington campaign will put up a fight leading up to November.

Thus, the pertinent question becomes do extreme “green” enviros run a competing initiative due to I-732’s flaws?

The Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy—a coalition of extreme “green” groups and big-government-loving labor unions —had planned to push a cap-and-tax initiative in 2016. The group never quite got around to releasing any substantive details about its job-destroying idea, so it’s unclear whether this is still an option to be worried about. However, considering an early press release from the alliance claimed the initiative’s focus would be to hit our economy by charging businesses extreme greenies don’t like “a fee for each ton of carbon pollution they emit,” people who care about jobs in Washington State should not get complacent.

Now that the legislature has adjourned, political types are waiting to see if the Tom Steyer-funded alliance will move forward with its far more extreme initiative. There is no indication the group will push a measure. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can count the extreme “greenies” out in the future.

Enviros are willing to sacrifice anything their extreme “green” agenda. They do not think twice about sacrificing our state’s economic security or working families’ well-being, even for a plan they admit is flawed.

That’s the ugly truth that the members of the Church of the Extreme Green Activists don’t want to admit.