After a decade of failed attempts to charge polluters for carbon dioxide emissions, Washington state’s landmark cap-and-trade program has finally started last yearto raise billions of dollars for electric school buses, energy efficient heat pumps and free transport for young people, among other projects. But now the Climate Commitment Act’s entire existence is in question. Opponents of the law — namely hedge fund manager Brian Heywood — argued that it amounted to a “hidden gas tax” and succeeded in getting an initiative to repeal it on the November ballot.
As climate change has been dragged into the culture wars, a shift in the political winds could jeopardize established efforts to reduce emissions. In Minnesota, a law to move the state to 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2040, signed last year by Gov. Tim Walz — now the Democratic vice presidential candidate — may be losing momentum. Democrats hold narrow majorities in the state legislature, and Republicans could gain enough seats to derail efforts to expand renewable power and plans to ensure disadvantaged communities can stall. see the benefits of green projects.
“There will be efforts to undo all of this,” said Patty Acomb, a Democratic state representative from Minnesota who chairs the House Climate and Energy Finance and Policy Committee. “And we don’t have time to waste on that. Even with the momentum we have, you know, 2040 is coming pretty quickly.”
Unless Democrats somehow manage to take both houses of Congress at the same time that Vice President Kamala Harris wins the White House, the best hope for climate action is likely at the state level. The November election could tilt state legislatures to the left, allowing Democrats to introduce new policies to reduce emissions, or to the right, allowing Republicans to challenge established programs.
“With Congress in trouble, meaningful climate policy is moving through state legislatures, making state elections this year absolutely essential for advancing climate action,” said Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. In states like Arizona and New Hampshire, Democratic lawmakers have been waiting for an opportunity to take control and pass their climate agenda. It would only take two seats in each of Arizona’s chambers to flip to give the Democrats a majority, opening the door to install the Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs’ plan to address the state’s water crisis and expand clean energy.
The job of eliminating carbon emissions will take decades of sustained political will regardless of country, but the fractured nature of American politics makes this challenge even more difficult. Take the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, the landmark climate law signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022, which has already more than $360 billion for clean energy and green technologies, such as electric vehicle and battery projects. Republicans in Congress tried to roll back provisions of the law dozens of times – though most of his money goes to districts represented by Republicanswhich benefits their constituents. Those threats did made some investors reluctant to put their weight behind cleantech projects. And if former President Donald Trump wins the presidential race in November, his administration could hinder the rollout of the fundswhich may make some projects unviable.
At the state level, however, even narrow majorities can produce a lot of legislation. Since the 2022 election, Minnesota Democrats have had a “trifecta” — holding the governor’s seat and both legislative chambers — paving the way for long-planned climate policies to pass after years of waiting. “We’ve been pushing initiatives over several years, but they’ve been blocked by the Republican-controlled Senate,” Acomb said. “And so there was a multitude of things that were being checked, that were being worked on, that were ready to pass.”
In the past two years, lawmakers created a program to help utilities and local governments ensure IRA fundingfounded a “green bank” to provide financial assistance for clean energy projects along with another measure to expedite their permitting processand awarded $38 million for weathering homes to improve energy efficiency.
Democrats currently control the Minnesota state Senate by a single seat, and a special election in November will decide which party gets the majority. The Republican candidate for that Senate seat, Kathleen Fowke, is married to the former CEO of Xcel Energy, a utility and natural gas company. Fowke ran against former state senator Ann Johnson Stewart, whose platform calling for “comprehensive solutions to our climate crisis.” While Fowke also champions “clean, affordable energy solutions,” Acomb said the heavily utility-funded candidate “would probably not work in the same direction [climate] goals” that Democrats would want.
Another state that has managed to pass significant climate legislation in the past two years is Michigan, where Democrats also scored a trifecta in 2022 and soon passed a law requiring the state 100 percent of its electricity from clean sources by 2040. “We’ve really just seen resounding and massive progress on clean energy and climate policy in Michigan,” said Nick Dodge, the communications director for the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. Similar to Minnesota, the state has also adopted measures promote energy efficiency and streamline the process for the approval of large-scale renewable energy projects. According to a recent report from the consulting firm 5 Lakes Energythese policies, in combination with federal IRA funding, are expected to save families nearly $300 on energy bills per year by 2030, as well as reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 65 percent.
In response to these efforts, Michigan Republicans launched “immediate attacks,” according to Courtney Bourgoin, deputy director for the Midwest region with Evergreen Action, a climate advocacy organization. This spring, a campaign linked to the fossil fuel industry tried to rally support for a ballot initiative to reverse state policy aimed at speeding up the process for approving new solar and wind projects, but could not get enough signatures of voters.
It’s a different story in Washington state, where an initiative to repeal the Climate Commitment Act got the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed to make the November ballot. Heywood, the millionaire Republican behind the proposal, temporarily advanced the measure take over gas stations and offering discounted prices to drivers – a tactic that drew accusations of violate bribery and corruption laws.
The cap-and-invest system sets a statewide cap on greenhouse gas emissions that declines over time and creates a market for businesses to buy pollution permits — a way to incentivize them to cut emissions while raking in billions raise dollars for installing EV chargers, improving air quality, and helping Native American tribes prepare for the effects of climate change. It requires the state to cut its emissions by nearly half by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.
Initiative 2117 will not only destroy the program – considered a model for New York and other states considering similar policies — but it would also prevent Washington from limiting carbon emissions in the future.
“This will pinch leaders in the state for a generation,” said Mark Prentice, a spokesman for the “No on 2117” campaign. Some 475 organizations across the state have at “No on 2117,” incl businesses, tribal nations and faith groupsin addition to the usual environmentally friendly suspects. They more than raised $14 million to protect the law, and urged voters to reject the measure by campaigning door-to-door, airing ads online and on TV and showing up at events like music festivals across the state.
“We’ve always known this was going to be a very tough fight,” Prentice said, “and that’s why we’re communicating with voters how we can in every community.”
While previous polls suggested that the vote would be close, one performed earlier this month found that 46 percent of voters said they would vote to keep the Climate Commitment Act, compared to 30 percent who said they would vote to repeal it. Although the political rhetoric around climate change is often divisive, policies to address the problem are generally popular – much more so than most people realize. A poll from CNN last year found that nearly three-quarters of the public, including half of Republicans, wanted the U.S. to cut emissions in half by 2030.
“This is not just a red and blue issue. These are people’s lives,” Bourgoin said. “The politics surrounding it simply don’t align with the way voters feel about these issues.”
