Climate Commitment Act

They passed the GMA, the Growth Management Act, which was huge, covered a ton of different topics.

They passed the CCA, the Climate Commitment Act, which covered enormous ground with all kinds of things in it.

But the court has ruled generally, no, no, these are single subject.

They count as single subject, right? The CCA was an enormous monster of a bill.

Right.

And that's not how the Supreme Court should be, which is, again, goes back to the Justice Supreme Court elections this year.

But if if they're opening that single source thing and using it that broadly, doesn't that at some point come back to bite them in the butt? Basically, like the Climate Commitment Act.

Now, if you challenge the Climate Commitment Act, clearly that's not single source.

I guess just quickly on this, millionaire's tax, of course, front and center, but I think there might be some other pieces to this, too.

Maybe the Climate Commitment Act, which I know has been a lightning rod of controversy, too, and has definitely been back and forth in the courts.

Do you see this court engaging with some of those other big issues in years to come?

Oh, yeah.

Next month, we will interview Brian Riberic, who is the chair of the Utilities and Transportation Commission, which has the final say over rate increases for investor-owned utilities like Avista and Puget Sound Energy.

This week, we examine the impact of two major environmental laws on Washington's energy future, the 2019 Clean Energy Transition Act and the 2021 Climate Commitment Act.

In our second half, we'll talk with Todd Myers, vice president of research at the free market Washington Policy Center.

But joining me first is former Democratic state senator Reuven Carlyle, the lead sponsor and architect of those two landmark environmental laws.

After leaving the legislature, he founded Earth Finances, a global climate strategy and technology firm that helps companies transition to clean energy sources.

In 2019, Carlyle successfully shepherded to passage the Clean Energy Transition Act, which requires utilities to transition away from fossil fuel energy sources by 2045, with key benchmarks along the way, phasing out coal by 2025, that has passed, and becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

Carlyle was also the lead sponsor of the 2021 Climate Commitment Act, a cap-and-invest program designed to force the state's largest greenhouse gas emitters to ramp down their emissions over time, with the goal of helping achieve, Washington achieve its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 95% by 2050.

Washington is in the process of linking its carbon market with California and with Quebec.

In Washington right now, we have a multi-billionaire kind of MAGA-aligned guy named Brian Haywood, who has been, over the last number of years, paying to put things on the ballot directly rather than really coming to the legislature to work out issues.

Um, and so for example, last year, he put three initiatives on the ballot: one to make it so he wouldn't have to pay as many taxes personally, a second one to repeal long-term care in Washington, and a third ti- third thing to repeal our Climate Commitment Act.

He lost all three of those.

Uh, and so this year, he has three initiatives on the ballot, and two of those are the ones that you, um, that you referenced.