The multimillion-dollar fight over WA's cap-and-invest program

Bolstered by an almost $5 million war chest, supporters of Washington’s cap-and-invest program have begun their efforts to keep the state’s carbon pricing system, which is facing a November recall referendum.

No On 2117 recently announced it expects its campaign dollars to grow eventually to about $11 million. The coalition hoping to repeal the state’s new cap-and-invest program, Let’s Go Washington, has raised just over $8 million so far, but most of that came as $5 million in loans from the instigator of the initiative.

“We’re going to make sure we have the resources needed to defeat 2117,“ said No On 2117 spokesman Mark Prentice. Environmental and left-leaning organizations make up most of the No On 2117 coalition, but the group also includes the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, BP America, and the Certified Electrical Workers of Washington union.

The cap-and-invest program has already brought about $2 billion into the state budget, mostly to support climate change mitigation, health and construction programs. During this year’s legislative session, lawmakers allocated more than $800 million of those dollars to do things like buy electric school and transit buses, install electric vehicle charging stations, support salmon recovery and coastline restoration, buy forest land and restore landscapes destroyed by wildfires.

https://crosscut.com/politics/2024/05/multimillion-dollar-fight-over-was-cap-and-invest-program