Decision could avert dueling carbon measures on 2016 ballot | The Petri Dish

Competing initiatives strive to combat climate change — one might fare better with the public

By Jerry Cornfield • January 2, 2016 3:42 pm

Backers of a carbon tax measure have spent months gathering signatures needed to earn a spot on the 2016 ballot.

Now they may not turn them in because the content of a competing initiative polls better.

“We are on the fence about whether or not to turn in our 350,000 signatures because of the emergence of an alternative proposal,” Yoram Bauman, the force behind the revenue-neutral proposal in Initiative 732, wrote on the group’s web site Monday.

A conference call with I-732 supporters was slated for Tuesday night and a final decision due by Dec. 30.

I-732 is conceived as a bipartisan plan to combat climate change in a way that doesn’t put all the financial onus on the emitters of pollution-causing carbon. The alternative, which is still being drafted, will likely impose a fee on polluters and spend the money on clean energy and clean water projects. It is pushed by the Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy.

Bauman noted I-732 doesn’t fare as well with voters as the alternative because of its complexity. And voters won’t spend the time to consider it amid the din of the presidential elections.

“That puts us in a difficult situation because I-732 requires a serious conversation … but most voters don’t have the time or the inclination to have a serious conversation about climate action amid all the other issues raised during a presidential election year,” he wrote.

Recent polling shows I-732 “starts in a hole” with 44 percent support and 40 percent oppose. In contrast, the alternative approach is “likely to start out better” with 57 percent support and 36 percent opposed, he wrote.

“Supporters of the alternative approach believe that the measure can be tweaked to boost these numbers even more, but in any case it is clear that the alternative approach significantly out-polls I-732,” Bauman wrote.

Read Bauman’s full statement on carbonwa.org/carbonwa-on-the-fence.

 

Political reporter Jerry Cornfield’s blog, The Petri Dish, is at www.heraldnet.com. Contact him at 360-352-8623; jcornfield@heraldnet.com and on Twitter at @dospueblos.