Green issues fill state ballots
Climate change battle takes different forms in voter initiatives
WASHINGTON – The political battle on climate change is shifting from the nation’s capital to ballot boxes thousands of miles away.
On Tuesday, voters in nine states – all in the South and West – will determine the fate of potentially far-reaching environmental measures, including whether to curb greenhouse gas emissions (Washington), increase the use of renewable fuels (Arizona, Nevada) or ban offshore oil drilling (Florida).
In addition, there are ballot initiatives to increase spending on land preservation (Georgia, California), protect wildlife habitats (Alaska), limit fracking (Colorado) and restrict mining (Montana).
President Donald Trump’s aggressive effort to roll back the broad environmental program pursued by President Barack Obama has activists looking outside the Beltway for solutions to global warming, increased pollution and habitat erosion, said Megan Mullin, an associate professor of Environmental Politics at Duke University.
“As states take up the slack in environmental policymaking, it makes sense that environmental groups would pay more attention to what happens in state elections,” she said. “We see it (not only) in the climate change space in the absence of federal policy action, but in other environmental areas as well.”
Trying to slow down Trump’s deregulatory efforts, environmental groups led by the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) have contributed millions to Democratic congressional candidates around the country in hopes of capturing enough seats to wrest the House from Republican control.
But in the short term, the most fruitful gains for environmentalists could come by electing governors and other candidates for state office pushing green agendas and winning ballot fights at the state level.
To that end, LCV and its local partners have spent nearly $40 million on state candidates and ballot initiatives around the country this election cycle so far.
As a result of Washington’s inaction, billionaire climate change activists including former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Trump impeachment advocate Tom Steyer are helping finance state ballot initiatives around the U.S.
Both Gates and Bloomberg contributed $1 million joining LCV and the Nature Conservancy to boost passage of a firstof-its-kind ballot measure in Washington State that would cut climate-damaging carbon emissions significantly over the next 30 years.
Opponents have spent even more, led by several large petroleum companies and the Koch Industries who warned of increased energy prices for consumers, according to state campaign finance records.
Here are some of the environmental proposals on state ballots Tuesday:
Washington
Initiative 1631 would impose a fee on sources of greenhouse gas emissions and “use the revenue to reduce pollution, promote clean energy, and address climate impacts, under oversight of a public board.”
The state is trying to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 – and half of 1990 levels by 2050 – by raising the cost of fossil fuels sold or used within the state and electricity generated within or imported.
Arizona
Arizona’s Proposition 127 would require 50 percent of the retail energy sales of these utilities to come from certain types of renewable energy by 2030.
The plan calls for increasing the use of renewable energy from 8 percent this year to 15 percent in 2025, and it’s not written into the state Constitution, so regulators have flexibility in offering waivers if any utility needs one.
Colorado
Proposition 112 on Colorado’s ballot would drastically limit the available areas for oil and gas exploration by redefining where it’s permitted.
Such activity can occur as close as 500 feet to an occupied building and “vulnerable area,” such as a playground, a reservoir, a public park or a river. This ballot proposal would impose a 2,500-foot buffer.
Nevada
Similar to Arizona’s renewable energy proposal, Nevada’s Question 6 would require state electric producers to buy or generate 50 percent of their power from renewable energy sources by 2030 – up from about 20 percent. The effort, like Arizona’s, is funded by Steyer.
If voters pass it, the proposed state constitutional amendment still will have to go back before voters in 2020.
Florida
Florida voters will decide whether to ban offshore drilling in state waters. They’ll also determine whether to ban the use of vapor e-cigarettes in the workplace.
The two proposals are bundled together as part of Question 9, one of several proposals on the ballot by the state Constitutional Revision Commission.
Under state law, the commission has the flexibility to link different issues to a single measure.
Georgia
Voters will be asked to decide on an amendment to the state constitution that authorizes the state Legislature to divert as much as 80 percent of state sales tax collected by sporting goods for “protecting and preserving conservation land.”
For years, advocates have pushed for the proposal known as the Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Amendment because it would raise about $200 million over the next decade to buy and improve parks and trails, without raising taxes.