Washington State

SEE WASH STATE2 11/18 new tag WA 1/18 not imple<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/washington-carbon-tax-big-oil-2616808725.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/washington-carbon-tax-big-oil-2616808725.html</a><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/washington-carbon-tax-big-oil-2616808725.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 31px;"> Oil Pours Record $30M to Sway Voters Against Nation's First Carbon Tax</a></h1><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url expanded" data-elid="2616808725" data-authors="Lorraine Chow" data-headline="Big Oil Pours Record $30M to Sway Voters Against Nation's First Carbon Tax" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><div class="widgetbrief">If voters approve <a href="https://www.sos.wa.gov/assets/elections/initiatives/finaltext_1482.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Initiative 1631</a> on Nov. 6, Washington state will take a significant step in <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">climate action</a> by becoming the first state in the nation to enact a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/carbon-tax" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">fee on carbon emissions</a>. That is, unless <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/big-oil" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Big Oil</a> can stop it.The U.S. oil industry has pumped a record $30 million to stop the carbon tax, which environmentalists have <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/carbon-tax-robert-kennedy-jr-2077945567.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">tried to enact for years</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-carbon/big-oil-outspends-billionaires-in-washington-state-carbon-tax-fight-idUSKCN1N51H7" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Reuters</a> reported, citing state data. Meanwhile, proponents—including green groups and climate activist billionaires Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer and Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs—have spent $15.2 million.</div><div class="js-appear-on-expand" style="transition: all 350ms ease 0s; height: auto; overflow: hidden; opacity: 1;">"With Big Oil spending $30 million, that makes it a real fight," Bill Holland, state policy director for the <a href="https://www.lcv.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">League of Conservation Voters</a>, told Reuters. "It has been a frightening amount of money."Washington ranks fifth in the nation in crude oil refining capacity for making gasoline and other petroleum products, according to the <a href="https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=WA" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">U.S. Energy Information Administration</a>.Initiative 1631 imposes a starting fee of $15 per metric ton on carbon emissions, beginning in 2020. This fee rises $2 every year until the state hits its 2035 emissions reductions goals and is on track to meet its 2050 goals. If passed, the tax is expected to generate $2.3 billion in revenue for green infrastructure, clean transportation and help communities most impacted by pollution.A recent statewide <a href="https://crosscut.com/sites/default/files/files/2018_statewide_crosscut_elway_poll.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Crosscut/Elway Poll</a> among registered voters shows 50 percent approval of the measure, 36 percent opposed and 14 percent undecided,  The opposition is led by the Western States Petroleum Association, a trade organization that has raised $31.2 million from energy companies and business groups for the "<a href="https://votenoon1631.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">No on 1631</a>" campaign—the most money ever spent in Washington state history to defeat a ballot initiative.BP America contributed the most with $11.5 million, followed by $7.2 million from Phillips 66 and Andeavor with $4.4 million, Reuters said. The three energy companies have refineries in the state. American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers and Valero Energy Corporation also donated funds.The money has been spent on digital ads, flyers, mailers and television ads aired during this month's Major League Baseball World Series. Opponents say the tax will "be paid by Washington families and small businesses."  RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB<div class="around-the-web"><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none;"><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/07/17/carbon-tax-climate-liability-waiver/" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Hidden gem for Big Oil in carbon tax plan: an end to climate liability ... ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/6/22/17487488/carbon-tax-dividend-trent-lott-john-breaux" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">A carbon tax supported by big oil and Bush-era lobbyists. What? - Vox ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/carbon-tax-does-it-work-2612613544.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Taxing Carbon May Sound Like a Good Idea But Does It Work? ›</a></li></ul></div></div></div></div><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" text-align="text-align" center="center" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><li class="hidden-xs" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: none; padding: 0px 0px 23px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.33;"><a data-ga-action="Home Headlines: Headline" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/10/12/headlines/washington_state_abolishes_death_penalty" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; border: 0px;">Washington State Abolishes Death Penalty</a></li></ul>=
<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15082018/youth-climate-change-lawsuit-dismissed-washington-state-greenhouse-gas-emissions">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15082018/youth-climate-change-lawsuit-dismissed-washington-state-greenhouse-gas-emissions</a>
bumma, wa state 8/18<div class="content" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> A group of young climate advocates who sued the state of Washington to force it to reduce greenhouse gas emissions lost their case on Tuesday when a judge sided with the state and agreed to dismiss it.The judge urged them to pursue their cause through other channels.King County Superior Court Judge Michael Scott wrote that the issues at the heart of the case are political and should be considered by the state's legislative and executive branches, not settled by its courts.The Washington lawsuit is one of <a href="https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/pending-state-actions" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">nine state-level cases</a> involving youth advocates supported by Our Children's Trust, the group leading a federal youth <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/571d109b04426270152febe0/t/57a35ac5ebbd1ac03847eece/1470323398409/YouthAmendedComplaintAgainstUS.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">lawsuit </a>that <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11072018/joseph-stiglitz-kids-climate-change-lawsuit-global-warming-costs-economic-impact" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">heads to trial</a> in a U.S. District Court in Oregon this October. Like the federal suit, known as Juliana v. U.S., the state lawsuits accuse the government of failing to protect the children from the dangers of climate change and pushing policies that favor fossil fuel use.The U.S. Supreme Court recently <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/073018zr_8mjp.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">rejected a plea</a> by the Trump administration to halt the federal trial, but in doing so, it also cautioned the lower court to tread cautiously before expanding judicial powers.  In his <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4758129-Youth-Case-Ruling-Washington-State-Motion-Dismiss.html" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">ruling</a> on Tuesday, Scott made clear from the first sentence that "anthropogenic climate change caused by increased greenhouse gas emissions poses severe threats to our environment and requires urgent governmental action." However, he said that the state's constitution doesn't include a right to a clean environment, as the plaintiffs had argued.It's unclear what influence, if any, the Washington decision might have in other states or at the federal level."The decision in this case was based on the Washington state constitution, with the judge finding that it does not confer a specific right to a stable climate system. Other state courts could reach a different conclusion with respect to their own state constitutions," explained Romany Webb, a fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University....</div></div></div></div>bomb trains...To put that in perspective, however, the industry was moving 1.3 million barrels per day at the peak of the U.S. oil-by-rail boom in 2014.<div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url expanded" data-elid="2549892201" data-authors="DeSmogBlog" data-headline="Risky Move: Canada Shipping More Tar Sands Oil by Rail" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description"><div class="js-appear-on-expand" style="transition: all 350ms; height: auto; overflow: hidden; opacity: 1;">...More Oil Trains, Still No Spill Response PlansA 1996 U.S. legal loophole exempts oil and rail companies from needing spill response plans for oil trains. This <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2014/02/25/past-time-close-loophole-exempts-oil-rail-companies-spill-response-planning" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">gap in oil spill regulations</a> came to light during the U.S. boom in oil train traffic more than four years ago and has not been resolved yet.However, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=PHMSA-2014-0105-0240" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">proposed a rule to change that</a>. According to a <a href="https://www.transportation.gov/regulations/report-on-significant-rulemakings" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Department of Transportation report</a>, the regulation is in the "Final Rule" stage, but a PHMSA spokesperson was unable to provide further detail on the timing or status of the rule actually taking effect. There is no guarantee the proposed rule, which would require oil spill response plans for trains carrying at least 20 continuous cars of liquid petroleum oil or 35 cars throughout the train, won't simply languish under the Trump administration.Another troubling aspect of this latest surge in oil-by-rail traffic is the fact that the oil industry, scientists, and U.S. and Canadian governments are still getting a grasp on how different types of tar sands oil behave when spilled in fresh and saltwater environments. One large tar sands oil spill <a href="http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/07/kalamazoo_river_oil_spill_time.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">in Michigan's Kalamazoo River in 2010</a> and <a href="https://www.nrt.org/site/download.ashx?counter=4905" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">subsequent studies</a> hint that there's more to the picture than the industry's spin that tar sands oil spills are no different than other crude oils.Local Governments Taking ActionWith the Trump administration actively rolling back safety regulations for oil trains, some U.S. states and communities are taking the initiative to protect themselves from the risks of tar sands oil and oil trains.Washington state has been a battleground in the fight against new oil-by-rail infrastructure. The recent decision to reject the proposed <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/01/29/washington-inslee-rejects-oil-rail-vancouver-energy-tesoro-savage" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Vancouver Energy oil-by-rail project</a> at the Port of Vancouver was a major victory for that movement and the latest in a string of such efforts on the West Coast.Washington is also taking things a step further and is now requiring rail companies to have oil spill response plans. The state recently approved such plans for oil-by-rail leader BNSF."This plan is a significant step forward for the protection of Washington's communities and environment," said <a href="https://www.lyndentribune.com/news/state-approves-oil-spill-response-plan-for-bnsf/article_0198de24-2789-11e8-a4a9-775b16c80d26.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Dale Jensen</a>, the spills prevention program manager for the state of Washington. "Oil by rail has expanded significantly in recent years, and it's imperative railroad companies are prepared to work with the state to respond to a spill in a rapid, aggressive, and well-coordinated manner."In New Jersey, earlier efforts to improve oil-by-rail safety were vetoed by then-Governor Chris Christie, but they have been restarted now that Christie is no longer governor. The <a href="https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/transportation/2018/03/12/nj-senate-revives-weinbergs-oil-train-transparency-bill-chris-christie-vetoed/415587002/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">proposed plans</a> "would require railroads to develop oil spill response plans in case of a derailment."More recently, the city of Baltimore <a href="http://www.insidesources.com/city-council-votes-to-ban-oil-export-terminals-at-ports-from-port-of-baltimore-threatening-jobs/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">voted to ban</a> the construction of new facilities that could be used to export crude oil from its port, an effort specifically targeting proposed oil-by-rail projects. This is a similar approach to <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/12/15/judge-sides-portland-montreal-pipeline-maine-oil-case" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">South Portland, Maine</a>'s ban on loading crude oil onto ships and to <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/05/06/new-york-serves-battleground-oil-and-gas-infrastructure-fights" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Albany, New York's</a> efforts to stop tar sands by rail. These bans take on new significance now that the first ocean-going tanker was recently filled with Canadian tar sands oil, which arrived by <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-14/canadian-crude-is-finding-a-new-way-to-asia-without-a-pipeline" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">rail in Portland, Oregon</a> and is destined for China.The first wave of oil trains in North America resulted in several major oil spills and the deaths of 47 people in Lac-Mégantic, Québec. However, there were several other very close calls with oil train crashes in recent years, resulting in <a href="https://www.ntsb.gov/news/speeches/CHart/Pages/hart_20160113.aspx" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">multiple declarations</a> of <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/06/05/luck-rides-rails-another-near-miss-bakken-bomb-train" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">how lucky communities were</a> that there weren't more deaths due to these oil train derailments.With no meaningful changes to how they are regulated, this second wave of oil trains will need that lucky streak to continue holding.</div></div></div></div><div>=</div>Washington stateWashington lawmakers are considering a bill to increase penalties for people blocking highways and railways, acts that the bill's sponsor has characterized as “economic terrorism.”=<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-lawsuit-washington-youth-2536683798.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-lawsuit-washington-youth-2536683798.html</a>13 kids wa state...In their <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/571d109b04426270152febe0/t/5a870db69140b70db78e78d3/1518800312335/Complaint.FILED.2.16.18.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">suit</a> (pdf), filed Friday in King County Superior Court, the plaintiffs, aged seven to 17, say the state, Gov. Jay Inslee, and several state agencies have created and propped up <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">fossil fuel</a>-based energy and transportation systems, thereby fueling greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the climate crisis. In so doing, they have created "unconstitutional conditions"—depriving the young people of their rights to a healthful and pleasant environment, and their rights to life, liberty and property.The climate-fueling actions, the suit says, have put the young people "in a position of danger with deliberate indifference to their safety in a manner that shocks the conscience."The state's current GHG reduction limits "are not consistent with what the scientific consensus says is needed to stabilize the climate system," the suit states. Rather than take action to address climate change, the suit says the state and the agencies "have acted with shocking deliberate indifference and abdication of duty to address this crisis." That's despite fact that the defendants were aware of the impacts of the climate crisis "[s]ince at least the late 1980s, well before these plaintiffs were born."The youths were forced to bring the suit "because the fossil fuel-based energy and transportation system created, supported, and operated by the defendants, and the systematic, affirmative aggregate actions which make up and support that system, severely endangers plaintiffs and their ability to grow to adulthood safely and enjoy the rights, benefits, and privileges of past generations of Washingtonians due to the resulting climate change."The suit lists the specific dangers the climate crisis is causing the plaintiffs.For 17-year-old James, for example, a member of the Quinault Indian Nation, his coastal village of Taholah has to be relocated because of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">sea level rise</a>. "This critical loss of his place-based heritage, a heritage that dates back to time immemorial, is irreplaceable, and permanent," the suit states. The traditional clamming activities he takes part in are also becoming limited because of climate change impacts including algal blooms, ocean acidification, and warming waters. <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/extreme-weather" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Increasingly severe storms</a> have also had an impact on his family, causing power outages. All these impacts, the suit says, are causing mental and emotional stress, and without meaningful action to address the climate crisis, the impacts are set to worsen....<div>=</div><div>
</div><div>bomb train </div><div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/washington-rejects-oil-project-2529919531.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/washington-rejects-oil-project-2529919531.html</a></div><div>
</div><div>On Jan. 29, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee rejected a permit required for Tesoro-Savage to build the Vancouver Energy oil-by-rail facility, the largest such project in the nation, at the Port of Vancouver, along the Washington-Oregon border. The governor explained the basis of his decision, which followed a several year long process, in <a href="https://www.governor.wa.gov/sites/default/files/documents/InsleelettertoEFSECTesoroSavage.pdf?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a letter</a> to the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council:"When weighing all of the factors considered against the need for and potential benefits of the facility at this location, I believe the record reflects substantial evidence that the project does not meet the broad public interest standard necessary for the Council to recommend site certification."Vancouver Energy, a joint venture of Tesoro and Savage, has not yet commented on the decision but has 30 days to file an appeal. Local environmental groups, however, were quick to applaud the news...</div><div>
</div><div>=</div>
Two longtime Republican state legislators from Washington state have been tapped by President Trump to help reshape the Environmental Protection Agency.
Former state Sen. Don Benton, of Vancouver, and state Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, are among 10 officials who joined the EPA over the weekend as part of a transition effort.

Benton, who recently declined to seek re-election after two decades in the Legislature, was named senior White House adviser supervising the EPA transition. Ericksen will act as communications director for the agency transition.
They are part of a “beachhead team” at the agency, preparing the way for permanent leadership in a new administration that is expected to vastly pare back environmental regulations.
The hires rewarded the loyalty of two of Trump’s earliest backers in Washington state, where many prominent GOP politicians shied away. Benton was Trump’s state campaign director, while Ericksen was deputy director.
Reached by phone Monday, Ericksen said he does not intend to resign his state Senate seat — but instead will fly back and forth to do both jobs.
“I am going to be racking up frequent-flier miles like you won’t believe,” he said, adding he has conferred with lawyers who say his temporary dual role is legal.
If Ericksen were to quit, it would leave the state Senate at least temporarily in a tie — a Republican led caucus now holds a 25-24 majority.
While Ericksen and Benton’s new roles are temporary — lasting up to a few months — they could transition to permanent jobs in the agency.
Ericksen said he doesn’t want to live in Washington, D.C., but is interested in a local role, such as administrator for the EPA’s Region 10, which includes Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska.
Trump has nominated Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma’s attorney general, as EPA administrator, a sharp critic of the EPA under the Obama administration who is expected to make major changes in an agency with wide-ranging responsibilities for enforcing clean water, clean air, pesticide and other major environmental regulations.
A climate-change skeptic and an ally of the oil and gas industry, Pruitt joined a multistate lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s plans to limit emissions from coal-fired power plants.
Likewise, Ericksen and Benton, who helped lead Trump’s campaign in Washington state, have been vocal critics of environmental regulations they see as overreaching — including clean-air rules aimed at combating global warming.
As the top Republican on the state Senate’s environmental committee, Ericksen has strongly opposed Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee’s initiatives to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. He has shrugged off the scientistic consensus on human-caused global warming, with statements like “climate change will always happen.”
In a statement released by the EPA Monday, Benton said he looked forward to working with career EPA employees “to make this transition work as well as possible, and to carry out the Agency’s mission to protect public health and the environment.”
National environmental groups oppose Pruitt’s nomination, and the local Sierra Club also expressed dismay at the hiring of Benton and Ericksen.

“It’s hard to imagine two lawmakers less qualified to be put in charge of environmental protection in the Pacific Northwest,” said Cesia Kearns, deputy regional director for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.
Benton chaired Trump’s Washington state campaign and reportedly gained Trump’s confidence as an adviser, with Washington, D.C., political newspaper The Hill, reporting in June that Benton had Trump’s ear “to an unusual degree.”
Their relationship grew last spring when Benton flew with Trump between rallies in Spokane and Lynden, Whatcom County, sharing a McDonald’s lunch. “I had a Filet-O-Fish and he had a Big Mac,” Benton said at the time.
By the Republican National Convention last summer, Benton was part of Trump’s team, helping to enforce discipline on the convention floor.
Known as a fierce, anti-tax conservative, Benton declined to seek re-election last year after more than two decades in the Legislature.
He also had been hired in 2013 as Clark County’s director of environmental services. His hiring for the six-figure job, orchestrated by two Republican county council members, drew accusations of cronyism.

Benton’s job was eliminated last year in a reorganization. He recently filed a $2?million lawsuit against the county, alleging he’d faced mistreatment, according to The Columbian newspaper.
Some other members of the EPA transition announced Monday previously had been reported, including David Kreutzer, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, and George Sugiyama, a former attorney for U.S. Senate Republicans who worked for the EPA during the George W. Bush administration.
Also part of the new transition effort are others who, like Benton and Ericksen, led Trump’s campaign efforts in Western states. They include: Patrick Davis, of Colorado; Layne Bangerter, of Idaho; and Charles Munoz, of Nevada.
Jim Brunnerhttp://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/trump-administration-taps-two-washington-state-legislators-to-help-reshape-epa/=
AN 1/17...This isn’t the first time in recent months that GOP legislators have tried to push aggressively anti-free speech laws. In Washington State, Republican Senator Doug Ericksen has <a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/trump-loving-gop-lawmaker-proposes-bill-define-protests-form-terrorism" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">proposed a law</a> that would create “a new crime of economic terrorism” which could allow for the arrest and prosecution of any protesters who “block transportation and commerce, cause property damage, threaten jobs and put public safety at risk.” Ericksen is likely well aware of the fact that “blocking commerce” succinctly describes pretty much every protest, ever. Republican Representative Kathy Lohmer of Stillwater, Minnesota, is <a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/01/14/stopping-traffic-minnesota-lawmakers-try-increase-penalties-for-common-protest-tactic/" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">floating a bill</a> that further criminalizes and penalizes protesting on freeways. Lohmer’s legislation would increase fines from $1,000 to $3,000 and raise jail time from 90 days to a full year.=as predicted:Trump-supporting Republican lawmaker is trying to legally define protests, like some of those erupting across the country against his candidate of choice, labeled a form of “terrorism.” In <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/JeffPohjola/status/799059855138926597/photo/2" style="text-decoration: none;">a statement</a> issued Wednesday, Washington state Senator Doug Ericksen says he is drafting a bill that would allow for felony prosecution of protesters who “intentionally break the law...by obstructing economic activity.” Considering that almost all protest could be defined as getting in the way of business interests, Ericksen’s bill is an obvious attack on citizens’ First Amendment rights.In an unvarnished look at the trickery we may see plenty of in Trump’s America, Ericksen says he will propose creating “a new crime of economic terrorism” which could be used against those whose protest activities “block transportation and commerce, cause property damage, threaten jobs and put public safety at risk.” Ericksen, who was Trump’s deputy campaign director in Washington state, said in the statement that he’s actually all for civil disobedience, even though he wants to make many kinds of protest—that is, constitutionally protected freedom of speech and assembly—felony offenses.“I respect the right to protest, but when it endangers people’s lives and property, it goes too far,” Ericksen said. “Fear, intimidation and vandalism are not a legitimate form of political expression. Those who employ it must be called to account.”Ericksen also threatened those who support protesters in their right to protest, stating, “We are not just going after the people who commit these acts of terrorism. We are going after the people who fund them. Wealthy donors should not feel safe in disrupting middle-class jobs.”Since we’re on the subject of economic issues, it seems relevant to point out that an <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/05/lobbyists_pamper_washington_st.html" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration: none;">Associated Press</a> investigation found during the first four months of 2013,Ericksen was “the biggest beneficiary of lobbyist expense accounts” of all Washington’s lawmakers. The AP report noted that lobbyists treated Ericksen to “free meals, drinks or golf...about every other day over the first four months of the year — and even more frequent[ly] if weekends are excluded.” Ericksen, who has been consistently poor on climate issues, had at the time just taken a leadership role in the state Senate Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee. The investigation found that Ericksen accepted these gifts from lobbyists who overwhelmingly “represented energy and oil companies, such as BP.”In <a href="http://www.wa-democrats.org/press/climate-change-denying-republicans-hold-hearing-bill-today-halt-action-climate-change" style="text-decoration: none;">a statement</a> released earlier this year, Washington State Democrats communications director Jamal Raad said, "When big oil asks Doug Ericksen to jump, his only question is 'how high?'"As Washington ACLU spokesperson Doug Honig noted to the <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/state-senator-some-protests-should-be-treated-as-felonies/" style="text-decoration: none;">Seattle Times</a>, there are already laws in place that make it illegal to imperil people’s lives and property, so Ericksen’s bill is completely redundant. Honig also pointed out that the ambiguity of Ericksen’s “economic terrorism” could make protests like those in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline a crime. Speaking with Fox affiliate <a href="http://q13fox.com/2016/11/16/republican-state-senator-proposes-creating-new-crime-of-economic-terrorism-aimed-at-protesters/" style="text-decoration: none;">Q13</a> Honig noted Ericksen’s fundamentally un-American bill would have kept African Americans from protesting their treatment in the 1960s.“Let’s keep in mind that civil rights protesters who sat down at lunch counters could be seen as ‘disrupting business’ and ‘obstructing economic activity,’ and their courageous actions were opposed by segregationists as trying to ‘coerce business and government,’” Honig said.He added, “The statement throws out a lot of broad rhetoric, and we’ll need to see an actual bill. But we’re already concerned that some of its loose terms appear to be targeting civil disobedience as ‘terrorism.’ That’s the kind of excessive approach to peaceful protest that our country and state do not need."Contact information for Doug Ericksen’s office is listed on <a href="http://dougericksen.src.wastateleg.org/" style="text-decoration: none;">his website</a>, should you have any thoughts you’d like to express about his proposed legislation. His office phone number—always the best way to reach a legislator—is (360) 786-7682.<div wibbitz="embed-main-player" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="bio-new body_story" style="width: 630px; line-height: 22px; height: auto; border-top: 3px solid rgb(223, 223, 218); clear: both; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="author-bio">Kali Holloway is a senior writer and the associate editor of media and culture at AlterNet.<a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/trump-loving-gop-lawmaker-proposes-bill-define-protests-form-terrorism">http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/trump-loving-gop-lawmaker-proposes-bill-define-protests-form-terrorism</a></div></div><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09112016/washington-state-carbon-tax-i-732-ballot-measure">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09112016/washington-state-carbon-tax-i-732-ballot-measure</a>
<div class="content" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Washington State voters rejected a proposal for the nation's first carbon tax Tuesday, defeating a landmark attempt to address climate change that had divided environmental activists. Despite being a major effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, some environmental justice advocates argued the measure would work against working people and the poor, a stance that put them uncomfortably aligned with the fossil fuel industry that also opposed the measure.<div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">The carbon tax was expected to raise $2 billion annually through higher prices for gasoline and fossil fuel-fired electricity. It would have given all the money back, and then some, to the state's residents and businesses through a sales tax cut, rebates for working families and a tax break for manufacturers. Like all carbon taxes, Initiative 732 was designed to drive down global warming emissions by reducing demand for high-carbon fuels.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">But it was unpopular with many social justice, environmental and health advocates who sought to use the revenue for renewable energy, mass transit and other green infrastructure projects, and to aid communities most affected by fossil fuel pollution or climate change. </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">The measure garned about <a href="http://results.vote.wa.gov/results/current/State-Measures-Initiative-Measure-No-732-concerns-taxes.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">42 percent of the vote</a>.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Among those who decided not to support the carbon tax were<a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/washington/sierra-club-position-carbon-washington-ballot-initiative-732" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"> Sierra Club,</a>the <a href="https://wecprotects.org/wec-position-732/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Washington Environmental Council, the </a><a href="http://blog.ucsusa.org/jason-barbose/washingtons-initiative-732-important-lessons-for-supporters-of-carbon-pricing" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Union of Concerned Scientists, </a><a href="http://www.climatesolutions.org/article/1461206472-why-we-cannot-support-initiative-732" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Climate Solutions, and </a><a href="http://350seattle.org/rescinding-our-endorsement-of-i-732/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">350Seattle.org.</a>  Of the major environmental groups, only <a href="http://wa.audubon.org/frontpage/why-we-support-i-732" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Audubon </a>supported it and raised money for the "yes" campaign, but climate scientists and even the actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio were vocal supporters.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">"While tonight's outcome is disappointing...we have awakened a sleeping giant, and we look forward to continuing the fight for commonsense climate solutions for birds and for people," said Gail Gatton, executive director of Audubon Washington.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Proponents of the initiative hoped it could serve as a model for breaking the political gridlock that has stymied federal action on climate change. </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">For groups on the forefront of the climate action movement, the decision to withhold support from a carbon tax was wrenching.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">"The people who came up with the idea of 'revenue-neutral' did it for a good reason, to defuse the partisan bomb that keeps us from getting everywhere on climate. But we can't find any political 'there' there," said KC Golden, a senior adviser to the Washington State nonprofit Climate Solutions.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">"To tell labor and communities of color, 'We're going to change the incentives and benefits are going to flow' sounds...a lot like 'trickle-down' economics. They justifiably don't trust that story."</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">It put environmental activists in a challenging place, said Alan Durning, director of the Seattle sustainability think tank Sightline Institute. I-732 has "divided climate hawks so deeply that even writing about it is a task we undertake with trepidation," he wrote. Some Washington chapter members of the Sierra Club quit over <a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/washington/sierra-club-position-carbon-washington-ballot-initiative-732" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">the national organization's decision </a>not to support the measure.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">That put the Sierra Club and other climate action advocates on the same side as the billionaire libertarian Koch brothers. Environmental groups didn't spend money on ads opposing the measure, but they stood on the sidelines as Koch Industries and other oil refiners and energy-intensive industries <a href="http://bit.ly/732_Opponents" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">poured $1 million </a>into opposing it in the two weeks before the election.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">The carbon tax was the brainchild of <a href="http://standupeconomist.com/about/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Yoram Bauman,</a> an iconoclastic Seattle economist and founder of a small advocacy group, Carbon WA, who designed the proposal to attract support from the right.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">"Climate action historically in this country has been in the purview of the Democratic Party," said<a href="http://standupeconomist.com/about/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"> Bauman</a>. This, he said, was "a budget-friendly, business-friendly, market-friendly, pocket-book friendly approach. We think that's a model for action in other states and in Washington, D.C."</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">But I-732 preempted a separate carbon tax effort that had been underway in the state, led by <a href="http://jobscleanenergywa.com/about-the-alliance-for-jobs-and-clean-energy/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">a large coalition</a> of environmental and public health groups, communities of color, and labor unions. The coalition had been working to design a plan that would <a href="http://jobscleanenergywa.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Alliance-Policy-One-Pager_final.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">spend the tax revenue</a> on clean energy and water initiatives that would create jobs, as well as projects to alleviate the burden of pollution and climate risk in communities of color. The coalition said it tried to initiate discussions toward a compromise with Bauman's group, but Carbon WA was committed to the tax-swap approach.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">"We think it's essential to have the revenue reinvested in climate solutions," said Aiko Schaefer, coordinator of <a href="http://frontandcentered.org/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Front and Centered</a>, a coalition of 60 social justice and community groups that opposed I-732. The coalition includes the NAACP, the Urban League, Coalition, the Asian-Pacific Island Coalition, and the Latino Community Fund. "Pricing carbon, and then giving the money away in tax breaks—including corporate tax breaks—is not something we could support."</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Although I-732 would give tax rebates to poor working families, there are about 340,000 low-income families who would not be covered by the program, Sightline Institute estimated. It would also not be fast or easy to fix that, since under Washington law, the state legislature cannot amend a voter initiative for two years.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Bill Corcoran, western director of Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign, called the measure a missed opportunity to help accelerate the move away from fossil fuels while addressing worker dislocation and environmental and climate injustice.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">"This is a transformational moment for our economy if we choose to take that opportunity. Unfortunately, Carbon WA has chosen a flawed political strategy and a small-bore approach that fails to grasp the opportunity to lift folks across the state of Washington."</div><h3 dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.333;">Battle Lines: The Fight Over I-732</h3><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">The carbon tax that Washington voters  rejected was designed to levy $25 per metric ton of carbon by 2018, ramping up over 40 years to $100. At $25 per ton, the levy would add about 25 cents to the price of a gallon of gasoline, 2.5 cents to each kilowatt-hour of coal-fired electricity, and 1.25 cents to electricity generated by natural gas.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">The money raised would flow immediately out of the state's coffers in a 1 percent cut in Washington's state sales tax, virtual elimination of the business taxes for manufacturers, and tax rebates of up to $1,500 per year to 460,000 low-income households.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">The approach earned a key <a href="http://csas.ei.columbia.edu/2016/10/28/carbon-pricing-a-useful-cautionary-tale/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">endorsement </a>from pioneering climate scientist James Hansen, who has long favored a carbon tax with a 100 percent rebate of the proceeds to citizens as the most effective and fairest means of cutting greenhouse gas emissions.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">"I-732 is not perfect, but it would be the best approach so far." Hansen wrote an op-ed in The Seattle Times. He urged a yes vote "for the sake of government transparency, and to provide an example for other states and the rest of the world, but most of all for young people, future generations, and nature."</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">More than 50 scientists from the University of Washington signed <a href="http://scientistsfor732.blogspot.com/2016/10/open-letter-on-i-732-from-climate.html?hstc=238502111.805084ed91efa134fa468241c63332ef.1478445841859.1478445841859.1478445841859.1&hssc=238502111.1.1478445841859&hsfp=1387900681" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">an open letter </a>in support of the initiative, and DiCaprio <a href="https://twitter.com/LeoDiCaprio/status/792005633994293248" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">used Twitter</a> to urge voters support the measure. Audubon Washington stood apart from other major environmental organizations, <a href="http://wa.audubon.org/frontpage/why-we-support-i-732" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">taking a strong stand </a>in favor of the measure and raising <a href="http://bit.ly/Audubon_WA" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">$1.3 million</a> for advertising and other pro-carbon tax campaigning. Noting that the movement may not get another opportunity to enact a carbon tax, Audubon said, "The cost of inaction is too great."</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Texas billionaire John Arnold and his wife, Laura, were the top donors to the effort to pass the carbon tax, contributing $250,000 to Audubon's campaign. Arnold, who made his fortune trading natural gas for Enron and his own hedge fund, now is a full-time philanthropist. Other top carbon tax supporters who gave through Audubon were Seattle engineer-turned-entrepreneur David Guiliani (whose company pioneered the Sonicaire toothbrush) and the Durst Organization, one of New York's largest family real estate empires and a <a href="http://www.durst.org/sustainability" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">pioneer </a>in environmentally sustainable buildings.)</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Together, Audubon and Carbon WA spent $3 million in support of the carbon tax. That was more than a 2-to-1 advantage over the <a href="http://bit.ly/732_Opponents" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">$1.4 million</a>raised by opponents, 70 percent of which came from oil refiners and energy-intensive industries in the final two weeks of the campaign. The American Fuel and Petroleum Manufacturers, the national trade group, led the late charge with a $250,000 donation. Other large contributors included Kaiser Aluminum, Nucor Steel, Ash Grove Cement, the Northwest Pulp and Paper Association, Puget Sound Energy, the state's most<a href="http://www.commerce.wa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Energy-FMD-2014-final.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"> carbon-intensive</a>electric utility. Koch Industries, which has no business<a href="http://www.kochind.com/locations/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;"> locations</a> in Washington state, gave $50,000.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">The campaign to defeat the bill was relatively small for a measure with impact on big business; in contrast, the food industry <a href="http://followthemoney.org/entity-details?eid=18982229&default=ballot" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">spent $33 million</a> to defeat a GMO-labeling ballot initiative in Washington State in 2013. For environmentalist opponents, the puny "no" campaign was proof that the fossil fuel industry did not view the measure as a threat. Proponents said, on the contrary, it demonstrated their success in crafting a measure that could gain wide support.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">The measure's biggest challenge, however, was confusion over what it meant. Polls showed the number of undecideds increased from <a href="https://cdn.strategies360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/KOMO-S360-Washington-Poll-2016-Toplines.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">one-fifth </a>of voters at the beginning of October to nearly <a href="http://komonews.com/news/local/inslee-clinton-still-atop-latest-polls-in-washington-state" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">one-third</a> of voters by the end of the month.</div><h3 dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.333;">Revenue-Neutral Controversy</h3><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">The goal for I-732 was to be "revenue-neutral," but <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mtj9tm3mwppytff/AAD5djzG-npL7bthbEwzJtT1a/2016%20RevenueEstimate12-11-15.docx?dl=0" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">number-crunchers</a> at the Washington state budget office concluded it would bring in about $225 million less annually than the payout in tax breaks. Others disputed that finding, but budget pressures are particularly acute because the state is currently in contempt of court for <a href="http://www.ofm.wa.gov/budget15/highlights/201517_highlights_overview.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">underfunding K-12 schools</a> in violation of the Washington constitution. State employees have not seen a wage increase since 2008, while their pension and health care costs have risen. The divided legislature narrowly avoided a government shutdown in its last state budget session.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">"Our state right now is under great turmoil, and let's be honest about which schools are going to be feeling the impact of more strain," said Schaefer. "And there will be other budget cuts, and often that means cuts to programs that impact people with low income. From our perspective, I-732 is written on backs of poor people."</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Due to the budget concerns, Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat and an outspoken advocate of climate action, opposed I-732. Inslee, who is set to implement a new rule in January capping carbon emissions of the state's largest polluters, won re-election.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">New York energy policy analyst Charles Komanoff, director of the Carbon Tax Center, said he believes that proponents of I-732 made a tactical error by framing the tax-swap as a way to appeal to fiscal conservatives, instead of stressing and explaining how it would protect low-income and middle-income families.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Washington State, which has no income tax, relies more heavily on sales taxes than other states, resulting in a regressive tax structure: Poor families pay a far greater percentage of their family income on tax than wealthy families. The sales tax cut helps address that inequity, says Komanoff, and poor and working families will see the benefit far more quickly than if the money went into infrastructure projects. "I think the policy they devised is fantastic, he said. "I think it's really fair and smart."</div><h3 dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.333;">Carbon Tax: What's Next?</h3><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Bauman said the opposition from environmentalists was "not entirely unexpected."</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">"There's two stories you can tell about how to get climate action. One is our story, a bipartisan revenue-neutral approach, and the other story is kind of what I would refer to as a unite-the-left, or progressive takeover of the world," he said. "For folks who are very committed to the second story, the first story doesn't look so good.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">"Our position all along has been not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good...We think that they're going to look back on this as a mistake that they made, of being on the wrong side of history," Bauman said.</div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit;">With I-732 defeated, Schaefer said her coalition would move forward with an effort to gain support for its carbon tax proposal that uses the revenue to help communities and accelerate a clean energy transition. But they'll face the difficulty of explaining to voters why the approach is different than the measure they rejected. "Definitely, Carbon WA has made the job more difficult of everyone who wants to see climate action," Schaefer said.</div></div></div></div></div><div class="tagged-with" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><label style="box-sizing: inherit; display: block; line-height: 1.2;">PUBLISHED UNDER:</label><div class="field field-name-field-topics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/clean-energy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">CLEAN ENERGY</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/carbon-tax" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">CARBON TAX</a></div></div></div></div>http://www.alternet.org/environment/california-and-epa-poised-expand-pollution-potential-drinking-water-reserves
In 1962, Diane Arbus took a photo of a lanky young boy in Central Park holding a hand grenade. He stands before the camera, a deranged look on his face, his free hand contorted into a menacing claw. It’s an iconic image that captured the generational tension around the Vietnam War and, according to songwriter of that time Graham Nash, one that questions the lessons we teach our children.Nash has referenced that photograph when recalling his song “Teach Your Children.” In it, he acknowledges that beneath the fears instilled by aging, beneath the photographed child’s lunatic visage, there is blissful idealism with hope still intact. That’s why, with a sudden turn of phrase in his second chorus, Nash sings that those of tender years must teach their parents well.A half-century later, there is a new movement of young people seeking to inform the world. A group of high-minded activists concerned with their environmental inheritance argues that current operating procedures threaten coming generations’ access to clean air, water, and a stable climate. State by state they’re suing to force governments to protect their birthright.Suing because asking hasn’t worked.In Washington state, a group of 12- to 16-year-olds supported by environmental nonprofit Our Children’s Trust has repeatedly asked the Department of Ecology to more strictly regulate carbon emissions. But the state has repeatedly refused, saying it lacks the authority and buying more time. Washington’s latest rendition of the Clean Air Rule—proposed legislation that would limit carbon pollution—fails to go far enough.The kids are asking for something that, surprisingly, does not exist: a rule that caps emissions and requires reductions based on the best available science. The Department of Ecology, which is charged by statute and state and federal constitutions to manage and protect the environment, has not challenged the validity of the science the kids have presented in court—numbers on graphs and charts based on recent research, all thoroughly cross-checked by some of the nation’s leading climate scientists.Yet the state’s current plan is based on outdated science. It calls for a reduction of statewide greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. This would require an annual reduction in emissions of 1.7 percent. Today’s experts say we’ll need to slash our emissions by about four times more than that. In addition, the state’s plan includes allowances for some businesses to drag their feet meeting the goals and credits given for out-of-state and past sustainable investments. There’s even a dubious mechanism that allows some carbon credits to be counted twice.The state has not only denied pleas for a rule that would require quicker action but challenged recent court direction to do so. Finding that the state had a “constitutional obligation to protect the public’s interest in natural resources held in trust for the common benefit of the people,” the King County Superior Court ordered the department to create such a rule by the end of 2016.But Gov. Jay Inslee's administration appealed the order. Although he’s considered a “climate hero,” said Andrea Rodgers, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center who represents the kids in court, “he missed a tremendous opportunity.”It is an election year, after all. Facing tight races in November, state Democrats may be wary that strong climate action will appear anti-business. And so, two quintessential American ideals have again butted heads: private enterprise versus the public good.Ultimately, that’s what this case is about—the public trust.The public trust doctrine is a legal concept in which governments protect resources—including air, water, and land—for the benefit of citizens as a whole. It’s an ancient idea with roots in indigenous cultures and Roman law’s res communes, addressing things owned by no one and available to all.It’s also the backbone of modern environmental law. Embedded in statutes back in 1892 when the U.S. Supreme Court found that the public, not a private railroad company, owned the submerged tidelands along Lake Michigan, this idea of public trust has since been invoked over water, oil, beaches, fish stocks, shellfish beds, and so on....<a href="http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/in-new-york-republicans-and-democrats-join-forces-to-overturn-citizens-united-20160629">http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/in-new-york-republicans-and-democrats-join-forces-to-overturn-citizens-united-20160629</a>18th? 59 in novhttp://grist.org/climate-energy/oregon-explosion-reminds-us-that-oil-trains-are-weapons-of-mass-destruction/sea hawk stadiumCharitable Plutocracy: Bill Gates, Washington State and the Nuisance of Democracy
Today’s multi-billionaires are a different species of philanthropist; they keep tight control over their foundations while also operating as major political funders.By Joanne Barkan / Nonprofit Quarterly April 27, 2016
This article was first published in the Nonprofit Quarterly (spring 2016; vol. 23, no. 1).
Once upon a time, the super-wealthy endowed their tax-exempt charitable foundations and then turned them over to boards of trustees to run. The trustees would spend the earnings of the endowment to pursue a typically grand but wide-open mission written into the foundation’s charter—like The Rockefeller Foundation’s 1913 mission “to promote the well-being of mankind throughout the world.” Today’s multi-billionaires are a different species of philanthropist; they keep tight control over their foundations while also operating as major political funders—think Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, or Walmart heiress Alice Walton. They aim to do good in the world, but each defines “good” idiosyncratically in terms of specific public policies and political goals. They translate their wealth, the work of their foundations, and their celebrity as doers-of-good into influence in the public sphere—much more influence than most citizens have.
Call it charitable plutocracy—a peculiarly American phenomenon, increasingly problematic and in need of greater scrutiny. Like all forms of plutocracy, this one conflicts with democracy, and exactly how these philanthropists coordinate tax-exempt grantmaking with political funding for maximum effect remains largely obscure. What follows is a case study of the way charitable plutocracy operates on the ground. It’s a textbook example of the tug-of-war between government by the people and uber-philanthropists as social engineers.
The Case of Bill Gates and Washington State
This story begins in 1995, when the Washington State House of Representatives first considered legislation that would enable private individuals and organizations to obtain charters to create their own K–12 schools. These were to be taxpayer-funded schools, but privately run and exempt from many of the regulations governing district (regular) public schools. The funding would come from the resources of regular public schools: each student would “carry” his or her per-child funding out of the district system to a charter school.
The bill died in the state senate, so supporters went directly to voters with a ballot initiative to enable charter schools. The campaign attracted little money on either side, but turnout was high because the vote took place on the same day as the 1996 presidential election. Washingtonians rejected charter schools decisively: 64.4 percent against, 35.6 percent in favor.1
State representatives kept trying. They proposed new bills in 1997, 1998, and 1999, but got the same results: success in the lower chamber, failure in the senate.2
Wariness of charter schools didn’t mean that Washingtonians were completely satisfied with existing schools or feared change. Voters had legitimate concerns. Charter schools, they worried, would divert tax revenue from already underfunded district schools, especially those serving low-income and minority students. In addition, schools under private management might be less transparent and less accountable to the public than Washington’s district schools, which were overseen by locally elected boards.
Charter supporters tried another ballot initiative in 2000, and, for the first time, attracted the backing of a multi-billionaire philanthropist. Paul Allen had cofounded Microsoft in 1975 and The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation in 1988.3 The state places no limits on individual campaign contributions for ballot measures, so Allen was able to give $3.275 million of the total $3.4 million raised by the pro-charter side. Opponents raised only about $11,000. Outspent 309 to 1, they still defeated the initiative, although the millions given in support of charters shrank the margin of victory. The vote was 51.8 percent against charters and 48.2 percent in favor.4
In the next four years, the national context shifted. The debate around public education intensified as a controversial market-based education-reform movement grew stronger. “Ed-reformers” claimed that U.S. public schools were failing; that the culprits were bad teachers, teachers unions, and government bureaucracy; and that the private sector, using public resources, could run better schools. They promoted competition among schools to force out the weakest and measuring educational success via students’ standardized test scores.
The education-reform movement in general, and charter schools in particular, attracted a new wave of philanthropists, many of whom had made fortunes in high-tech industries and finance. Although they had no experience as educators, they aimed to “disrupt” and rebuild public schooling for urban low-income and minority children. They embraced the idea that giving grants to K–12 reform projects corresponded with investing capital in a business. They described their philanthropy in terms of strategic investments to maximize returns and data collection to verify results. Having succeeded in business, they reasoned, they would succeed in education. They came to see funding education-reform candidates and ballot initiatives as part of the same effort.
The Washington legislature finally passed a charter school law in 2004. Opponents responded by petitioning for a ballot measure to repeal the law. Mobilized by the teachers unions, League of Women Voters, state Democratic Party, and the Seattle School Board, they raised $1.3 million for the campaign. The unions contributed the most: the Washington Education Association gave $601,000, and the National Education Association gave $500,000.5
Charter school supporters raised three times as much—$3.9 million. Most of it came from three education-reform political funder-philanthropists, who donated about $1 million each: Bill Gates, who had recently made education reform the main focus of his domestic philanthropy; Walmart heir John T. Walton (from Wyoming), who advocated charters and tax-funded vouchers for parents to use for private-school tuition; and Donald Fisher (from California), founder of Gap and a major donor to the KIPP chain of charter schools...Initiative Measure No. 1240 concerns creation of a public charter school system. This measure would authorize up to forty publicly-funded charter schools open to all students, operated through approved, nonreligious, nonprofit organizations, with government oversight; and modify certain laws applicable to them as public schools.
Should this measure be enacted into law? Yes [ ] No [ ]17
The coalition of advocates behind the 2012 initiative included some well-known grantees of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: for example, Stand for Children (about $9 million in grants from 2005 through 2012)18 and the League of Education Voters, a subgrantee of the Alliance for Education ($733,285 in grants for 2011 and 2012).19
To collect the signatures, the coalition hired PCI Consultants, Inc., of Calabasas, California, a “full service petition and field management firm” with experience in Washington State.20 The drive began in mid-June, which left just twenty-one days to collect 241,153 valid signatures—the shortest drive in state history (except for one in 1973).21 Success depended on quick access to millions of dollars for an all-out effort.
The drive raised $2.3 million and delivered about 350,000 signatures by the July 6 deadline.22 One signature gatherer from California told the Seattle Times that he was among about four hundred out-of-staters who had been hired. Coalition spokespeople declined to confirm or deny the information.23
According to the Public Disclosure Commission in Washington State, funders for the signature drive included Gates ($1 million), Alice Walton (from Arkansas, $600,000), Mike and Jackie Bezos (parents of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, $500,000), venture capitalist Nicolas Hanauer ($450,000), Katherine Binder (chair of EMFCO Holdings, $200,000), Paul Allen’s Vulcan, Inc. ($100,000), and Reed Hastings, from California (Netflix cofounder and KIPP charter schools board member, $100,000).24
As soon as Initiative 1240 was certified for the November vote, the race to stockpile more money began.
The pro-charter side collected another $9.1 million for the fall campaign. More than 70 percent of the additional money came from just six donors: Gates ($2.075 million), Vulcan, Inc. ($1.5 million), Alice Walton ($1.1 million), Mike and Jackie Bezos ($600,000), Hanauer ($600,000), and Connie Ballmer (wife of former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, $500,000).25
Opposition to the charter initiative was broad but not deep-pocketed. The organizations calling for a “no” vote included the Seattle King County NAACP, El Centro de la Raza, the Japanese American Citizens League Board, the League of Women Voters, the Washington State PTA, local elected school boards, the Association of Washington School Principals, the Washington Association of School Administrators, many district and county Democratic Party organizations, the Washington State Labor Council, the Washington Education Association, and other state and local unions.26
The “no” coalition raised just over $727,400.27 The largest donations came from the National Education Association ($250,000) and the Washington Education Association ($200,000).28 According to KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio’s blog, “Teachers’ union officials say…when it comes to the big money behind the charter school initiative, they just can’t compete.”29...Late last night, King County Superior Court Judge Hollis R. Hill issued a <a href="http://ourchildrenstrust.org/sites/default/files/15.11.19.Order_FosterV.Ecology.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; line-height: 25.2px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">groundbreaking ruling</a> in the unprecedented case of <a href="http://ourchildrenstrust.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; line-height: 25.2px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">eight youth petitioners</a> who requested that the Washington Department of Ecology write a carbon emissions rule that protects the atmosphere for their generation and those to come....“In this important ruling, Judge Hill has made it very clear what [the Department of] Ecology must do when promulgating the Clean Air Rule: preserve, protect and enhance air quality for present and future generations and uphold the constitutional rights of these young people,” said Western Environmental Law Center attorney Andrea Rodgers. “We will hold Ecology accountable every step of the way to make sure that Judge Hill’s powerful words are put into action. This is a huge victory for our children and for the climate movement. To Gov. Inslee, we hope you take this <a href="http://ecowatch.com/cop21/" style="line-height: 25.2px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">message with you to Paris</a> and heed Judge Hill’s finding that ‘if ever there were a time to recognize through action this right to preservation of a healthful and pleasant environment, the time is now.’”This case is one of several similar state and international cases, all supported by Our Children’s Trust, seeking the legal right to a healthy atmosphere and stable climate. Cases brought by youth to protect the atmosphere are pending before trial judges in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Colorado, and before appellate courts in Massachusetts and Oregon...<a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/11/20/stem-tide-climate-change/">http://ecowatch.com/2015/11/20/stem-tide-climate-change/</a><a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/11/20/stem-tide-climate-change/">http://ecowatch.com/2015/11/20/stem-tide-climate-change/</a>WA state:  In a landmark decision, Judge Hill declared “[the youths’] very survival depends upon the will of their elders to act now, decisively and unequivocally, to stem the tide of <a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; line-height: 25.2px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">global warming</a> … before doing so becomes first too costly and then too late.”Highlighting inextricable relationships between navigable waters and the atmosphere, and finding that separating the two is “nonsensical,” the judge found the public trust doctrine mandates that the state act through its designated agency “to protect what it holds in trust.” The court confirmed what the Washington youth and youth across the nation have been arguing in courts of law, that “[t]he state has a constitutional obligation to protect the public’s interest in natural resources held in trust for the common benefit of the people.”...Significantly, similar legal issues are being considered in a federal <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/08/13/youth-file-climate-lawsuit/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; line-height: 25.2px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">lawsuit brought in August 2015</a> against the federal government by 21 young people from across the U.S. and Dr. James Hansen as guardian for all future generations, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. Just last week in that case, the world’s largest fossil fuel industry representatives <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/11/13/our-childrens-trust-climate-lawsuit/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; line-height: 25.2px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">filed a request to intervene</a> to protect their commercial economic interests in fossil fuel exploitation and to thwart the youth’s request for protection of their fundamental constitutional rights. The proposed intervenors, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (representing members <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=exxon" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; line-height: 25.2px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">ExxonMobil</a>, BP, Shell, <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=koch" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; line-height: 25.2px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Koch</a> Industries and virtually all other major refiners and petrochemical manufacturers), the American Petroleum Institute (representing 625 oil and natural gas companies) and the National Association of Manufacturers, called the youth’s case “a direct threat to [their] businesses.”Two teenagers from Eugene, Oregon appealed Judge Karsten Rasmussen’s adverse decision yesterday to their climate change lawsuit. In its <a href="http://ourchildrenstrust.org/sites/default/files/15.05.11.OregonCircuitCtOpinion.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">decision</a>, the court ruled that the state of Oregon has no responsibility to preserve Oregon’s iconic rivers and beaches, fish, wildlife, shorelands or the atmosphere for future generations.Without addressing any of the evidence presented in expert declarations supporting the youth, including statements from the state’s own scientists, the court questioned “whether the atmosphere is a ‘natural resource’ at all.” Last year, Judge Rasmussen decision was <a href="http://ourchildrenstrust.org/sites/default/files/14.06.11ORCourtofAppealsDecision.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">reversed</a> by the Oregon Court of Appeals in the same case brought by the teens, and plaintiffs <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/02/23/teens-sue-government-climate-change/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Kelsey Juliana</a> and Olivia Chernaik are hopeful that the most recent decision will be overturned again.Juliana and Chernaik’s appeal comes less than two weeks after two landmark climate wins in the courts. On June 23, <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/06/25/court-rules-state-address-climate/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Washington state youth</a>, who along with Juliana and Chernaik are part of a global youth-driven legal campaign, won an <a href="http://ourchildrenstrust.org/sites/default/files/Order_Fosterv.Ecology.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">unprecedented decision</a> in their climate change lawsuit. Hours later, after the win in Washington, the Dutch Urgenda Foundation and hundreds of Dutch citizens <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/science/ruling-says-netherlands-must-reduce-greenhouse-gas-emissions.html?r=0" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">won a climate case</a> that forces the Netherlands government to adopt stringent climate policies.Back in Oregon, youth aren’t seeing similar victories—yet. The Oregon legislature ends its session this week without passing or even putting to a floor vote Oregon’s Climate Stability and Justice Act (HB 3470), which would have been the most comprehensive climate law in the state.7/15http://www.alternet.org/environment/kids-win-landmark-climate-battle-against-washington-state-governmentKids Win Landmark Climate Battle Against Washington State GovernmentFor the first time in the U.S., a court of law has ordered a state agency to consider the best available science when deciding to regulate CO2 emissions.By Deirdre Fulton / Common Dreams June 26, 2015
Citing what she called the "historical lack of political will to respond adequately to the urgent and dire acceleration of global warming," a judge in Washington state handed a group of eight young petitioners a landmark win this week, ordering the Department of Ecology (ECY) to consider statewide reductions in carbon dioxide emissions based on best available science.
"The effect of this decision is that for the first time in the United States, a court of law has ordered a state agency to consider the most current and best available climate science when deciding to regulate carbon dioxide emissions," said Andrea Rodgers of the Western Environmental Law Center, attorney for the youth petitioners, who are in elementary, middle, and high school.
The kids acted with the help of a NASA climate scientist as well as Our Children's Trust, an Oregon-based nonprofit orchestrating a global, youth-driven legal campaign to establish the right to a healthy atmosphere and stable climate5/15http://ecowatch.com/2015/05/14/university-of-washington-divests-coal/paddle in seattle,kayaktivists

2014 election

coal export

...The multimillion-dollar push by groups like the League of Conservation Voters and liberal billionaire Tom Steyer’s super PAC aims to secure friendly majorities in the legislatures of states such as Oregon, Washington and Colorado. Victories there could help blunt their grim prospects in D.C., where the all-but-paralyzed U.S. Senate may be in Republican hands after November.

In Washington state, where control of the state Senate narrowly rests with a conservative coalition of 24 Republicans and two Democrats, switching just two seats could put green-minded lawmakers in charge. That would help Gov. Jay Inslee’s chances of enacting a market-based carbon reduction program next year. Environmentalists there also hope to block coal export projects and are increasingly worried about trains carrying crude oil.

(<a href="http://www.politico.com/p/pages/all-policy-is-local-energy-2014" target="_blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background: transparent;">Read All Policy is Local Energy coverage</a>)

In Oregon, environmentalists are just shy of a majority of legislators needed to renew a green-fuel mandate that expires at the end of 2015. In Colorado, they want to maintain the state Senate’s thin Democratic majority, which could help defend a renewable energy program and impose tighter standards on oil and gas development.

“Policy action on clean energy will be at the local and state level for the next few years,” said Betsy Taylor, a Takoma Park, Maryland-based leader of a network of wealthy climate donors, adding that some states are considering imposing a price on carbon and more than 100 cities have clean-energy programs. “Donors are paying attention to this and investing in local candidates who are climate heroes.”

LCV’s state chapters are “looking at the state legislators as the congressmen and senators and governors of the future,” said Daniel Weiss, the group’s senior vice president for campaigns.

(<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/one-democrats-gamble-on-climate-change-110402.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background: transparent;">All Policy is Local Energy: One Democrat's gamble on climate change</a>)

The state strategy isn’t entirely new — last year, greens pulled off a surprising effort to elect friendly candidates to four seats on Washington state’s Whatcom County Council, which will decide on a proposed export terminal that would help U.S. coal find markets in Asia. And conservative groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council have succeeded for years in pushing causes like opposing Environmental Protection Agency regulations and passing pro-gun laws. But the environmentalists’ new focus on state-level races makes it clear that, increasingly, the battleground on energy policy is local.

Even some of the greens’ adversaries say the strategy makes sense.

“We’re in an era where state legislatures and statewide races are just more important than congressional races to the long-term policy,” said Michael Davis, CEO of Enterprise Washington, a coalition of business interests that support candidates Steyer is targeting for defeat. “D.C. is just so gridlocked right now that anything impactful is just darn near impossible to happen. Even if Republicans take control in the U.S. Senate, they’re not going to get anywhere because of the president.”

Another advantage: the relatively cheap price of state legislative campaigns. Oregon Democratic consultant Jake Weigler estimated that a typical competitive state Senate race there runs about $400,000 to $700,000, far less than the millions being lavished on the top U.S. Senate races. “For national groups, that’s chump change,” he said.

(<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/ethanol-fuels-iowa-109557.html" target="_blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background: transparent;">Also on POLITICO: Ethanol fuels clash in corn country</a>)

And unlike Congress, many state legislatures “still have some degree of bipartisan comity,” said Carl Pope, who led the Sierra Club for nearly two decades. “They actually legislate.”

The greens’ goal is twofold: Ward off attacks on states’ green energy programs and President Barack Obama’s climate policies, and push for new or expanded measures like efforts to put a price on carbon.

The states will be the battleground for Obama’s signature climate policy — EPA’s greenhouse gas rule for existing power plants. The states are responsible for writing plans to meet the new carbon limits, and some greens worry that conservative groups like ALEC could persuade lawmakers to interfere.

(<a href="http://www.politico.com/2014-election/predictions/senate/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background: transparent;">POLITICO's 2014 race ratings</a>)

The national greens aren’t giving up their congressional efforts, of course. Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action Committee and LCV are still putting tens of millions of dollars into U.S. House and Senate races, including NextGen’s efforts to elect or reelect Democratic senators in Colorado, New Hampshire, Michigan and Iowa. Steyer is also spending big on an effort it announced early this year to unseat Republican Govs. Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, Rick Scott of Florida and Paul LePage of Maine.

But both groups are mounting a late effort to put serious money into the state legislative races. LCV plans to spend $5 million on local and state races this cycle — equal to how much it spent on races at all levels of government in the 2010 cycle — and Steyer earlier this month moved $1 million to NextGen’s Washington state PAC.

Steyer may also engage in state and local races in Iowa, Colorado and other places where his targeted U.S. Senate contests “overlap with state legislative target areas,” a NextGen official said.

(<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/barack-obama-isil-111034.html" target="_blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background: transparent;">Also on POLITICO: Barack Obama’s dirty war</a>)

NextGen announced Wednesday that it is supporting two Democratic state Senate candidates in Washington and two in Oregon. Steyer may also jump into “a few other races in Washington, in particular where the entire Democratic ally table believes we may be able to run climate messaging on,” the NextGen official said. That “table” of Democratic allies, which includes environmental groups, Planned Parenthood and major labor unions, may intervene in as many as 13 to 15 state House and Senate races in Washington, the official said.

LCV is supporting the work of its state chapters, which are backing the same four Democrats in Washington and Oregon.

In addition, Washington Conservation Voters, LCV’s Washington state chapter, is also supporting a third Democrat, Seth Fleetwood, who is challenging Republican state Sen. Doug Ericksen, the chairman of the Senate’s Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee. Ericksen’s district is in Whatcom County, the site of the environmentalists’ 2013 triumph.

Washington Conservation Voters President Shannon Murphy said her group has about 1,000 volunteers knocking on doors and is planning television ads, direct mail, online ads and phone banking to support the three state Senate candidates. She alleged that Ericksen “is in the pocket of the oil and coal industry.”

(<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/isil-syria-iraq-war-debate-110940.html" target="_blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background: transparent;">Also on POLITICO: War debate headed past elections</a>)

Ericksen countered that he doesn’t think “D.C.-style attack politics” will work in his district. He called himself a leader on environmental issues but said he opposes measures like a carbon tax because they could hurt the economy.

“You have to have an environmental vision of the future that’s grounded in the reality of today,” Ericksen said. “And the reality of today is that we’re using petroleum-based fuels.”

One Washington state Democrat receiving help from Steyer and LCV, Matt Isenhower, downplayed the billionaire’s role in his race against Republican state Sen. Andy Hill....

Read more: <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/environmental-groups-spending-states-2014-elections-111435.html#ixzz3G2tOt9pD" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background: transparent;">http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/environmental-groups-spending-states-2014-elections-111435.html#ixzz3G2tOt9pD</a>

===

===

uscoc:

No wonder secrecy is a hallmark of the U.S. Chamber/ILR's strategy when getting involved in these electoral races. Indeed, the organization sometimes goes to great lengths to keep its involvement and funding a secret. The Huffington Post is definitely on the right track with its new "<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/26/who-funds-the-chamber-of_n_334654.html" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow: visible; outline: 0px; text-indent: 0px !important;">tip line</a>" seeking to find out who is backing them. We're guessing <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-senn" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow: visible; outline: 0px; text-indent: 0px !important;">Deborah Senn</a>thinks so too.

In 2004, Senn, who was Washington State's insurance commissioner, ran for state Attorney General. She had been known as a pro-consumer commissioner, committed to protecting the rights of her state's policyholders. She was comfortably ahead in the polls but in September 2004, right before Washington's Democratic primary, a group called the Voters Education Committee (VEC) ran a series of nasty and expensive attack ads against her. The state's Public Disclosure Commission sought financial information about the VEC but was denied. It was only after the state filed a lawsuit that <a href="http://www.seattlepi.com/local/190503_ads13.html" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow: visible; outline: 0px; text-indent: 0px !important;">the truth came to light</a> -- that the Chamber was VEC's sole contributor, spending $1.5 million on the anti-Senn ads. Senn won the primary despite the smears, but the damage had been done. After continuing PR attacks, she lost the general election.

The Chamber said that its activities constituted voter education and issue advocacy, not campaigning or political advocacy that can be regulated by election laws. However, the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission disagreed, finding that its ads impugned the character and record of Deborah Senn and thus was "express advocacy" -- not "issue advocacy." The <a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003882844_websennads13.html" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow: visible; outline: 0px; text-indent: 0px !important;">Washington State Supreme Court agreed,</a> telling the Chamber to reveal its donors.

Since then, the ILR has come under heavy criticism in a few other ways. Theodore Eisenberg, Professor of Law and Statistical Sciences at Cornell University, has just published a <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1470872" style=" list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow: visible; text-indent: 0px !important; outline: 0px;">scathing attack</a> on the integrity, validity and impact of the ILR's annual "ranking" of states, which is simply a survey of corporate lawyers many of whose clients have been taken to court for causing harm.

They have also created several "newspapers" around the country that present readers with biased, anti-victim accounts of cases and pro-"tort reform" commentary. Initially, the Chamber tried to hide that it created the papers to use, as the Washington Post wrote, "as a weapon in its multimillion-dollar campaign against lawyers who file those kinds of suits."

But all of this secrecy has to be expected. After all, think of their goal: to convince average Americans to give up their rights to go to court against reckless corporations and to make sure the insurance industry can keep a little more money in its pocket. That's what "tort reform" is. And that is some PR feat.

</div>

===

afp whatcom cty coal <a href="http://grist.org/politics/why-the-koch-brothers-matter-more-than-you-on-election-day/">http://grist.org/politics/why-the-koch-brothers-matter-more-than-you-on-election-day/</a>

The environmental stakes in local elections can be enormous, with implications for climate change. In Whatcom County, Wash., the county council elections today will <a href="http://grist.org/news/the-future-of-a-big-coal-export-project-will-be-decided-by-this-small-washington-community/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">determine</a> whether the coal industry gets permission to build a desired coal export terminal. The proposed terminal, which would be the biggest of its kind on the West Coast, would allow for the shipment of coal extracted from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming to emerging markets in Asia.

Currently, there is a pro-coal majority on the council, and so environmentalists have <a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2022118004_whatcomcountyelectionsxml.html" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">poured</a> more than $400,000 into a campaign to flip seats there, while the coal industry has chipped in at least $150,000 for the other side. This rare instance of spending favoring the public interest rather than the few corporations or wealthy individuals with a financial stake in the matter shows that the environmental movement can combat the special interests when properly organized.

===

<div class="series-label" style="border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 170); margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.6563px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(254, 250, 203);">This post is part of the research project: <a href="http://daily.sightline.org/projects/northwest-coal-exports" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">Northwest Coal Exports</a></div>

In Whatcom County, local authorities have a direct say over the land use and permitting decisions that will allow the project to go forward—or not. In other words, the composition of the Whatcom County Council matters a great deal to the future of the US coal industry. And as it happens, four of the seven members of the Council are up for re-election, which means that the races have become a virtual referendum on the highly controversial coal port.

<a href="http://earthfix.opb.org/energy/article/the-little-county-council-election-that-could-mean/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">As KUOW’s Ashley Ahearn reported last week</a>, the candidates thought to be opposed to the port were handily out-fundraising their opponents. Then, just after Ahearn’s story and other <a href="http://crosscut.com/2013/10/18/politics-government/116990/whatcom-coal-fight-election/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">similar coverage</a> was published—and just days before a key fundraising deadline—<a href="http://www.pdc.wa.gov/MvcQuerySystem/CommitteeData/contributions?param=U0FWSVdTIDIyNw&year=2013&type=continuing" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">a tsunami of coal money</a> flooded into a two-month-old local PAC, <a href="http://www.savewhatcom.org/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">Save Whatcom</a>.

Here’s how suddenly the cash arrived:

And here’s where Save Whatcom’s money comes from:

Only a small fraction of the pro-coal money comes from Whatcom County, or anywhere in the Northwest for that matter. Almost all of it can be directly linked to firms or people with a strong financial interest in Northwest coal exports. And much of the coal money seems to originate from sources that tilt heavily toward Republican politics.

Here’s a closer look at who’s behind coal money in Whatcom County.

<h3 style="border: 0px; margin: 25px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.6563px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cloud Peak Energy: $50,000</h3>

<p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.6563px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://cloudpeakenergy.com/contact-us/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">Based in Wyoming</a>, Cloud Peak is a “pure play” Powder River Basin coal company. For several reasons, it is probably the best-situated US company to compete in the Pacific Rim export market. In fact, <a title="Recent Coal Export Trends: Q2 2013" href="http://daily.sightline.org/2013/10/03/recent-coal-export-trends-q2-2013/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">it currently claims almost all</a> of the relatively small volumes of coal exported from the West Coast. Even so, times are tough for would-be coal exporters. So tough, in fact, that an analysis by Sightline showed that last quarter <a title="The Hidden Export Bombshell in Cloud Peak’s Financials" href="http://daily.sightline.org/2013/09/23/the-hidden-export-bombshell-in-cloud-peaks-financials/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">Cloud Peak made roughly 10 times as much money shorting coal as by actually selling it</a>.

The firm has <a href="http://gatewaypacificterminal.com/cloud-peak-energy-announces-option-agreement-with-ssa-marine-for-capacity-at-future-cape-size-export-terminal-in-pacific-northwest/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">already inked a deal to move 16 million tons of coal</a> through the Gateway Pacific terminal in Whatcom County, giving Cloud Peak a direct financial stake in the outcome of local elections there.

Boich Co. may be best known for its 38-year-old heir, billionaire playboy Wayne Boich Jr., who <a href="http://www.zimbio.com/dating/ZZg8Pi05-NH/Wayne+Boich+dated+Tara+Reid/Tara+Reid" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">once dated Tara Reid</a> and whose activities make him sound like a comic book villain. <a href="http://blogs.herald.com/scene_in_the_tropics/2012/07/coal-mining-heir-wayne-boich-jr-building-billionaire-bachelor-pad-on-north-bay-road.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">According to the Miami Herald</a>, for example, he bought three North Bay properties for $19.6 million in 2012 planning “to knock down all three homes and build one big billionaire bachelor pad.” (Photos of Boich, who appears to have chronic difficulties buttoning his shirt, are <a href="http://blogs.herald.com/scene_in_the_tropics/2012/07/coal-mining-heir-wayne-boich-jr-building-billionaire-bachelor-pad-on-north-bay-road.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">here</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=%22wayne+boich%22&client=firefox-a&hs=8lJ&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=JVRlUpmDEOXOigKXqIHoBg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1252&bih=609&dpr=1.09" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">here</a>.) His father, Wayne Boich, is <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2010/06/09/4015/john-boehner-pro-business-agenda" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">one of the biggest financial backers of US Speaker of the House, John Boehner</a>.

<div class="textwidget" style=" background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Do you find this article interesting? <a href="http://www.sightline.org/giving/?code=blogmid32609" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">Please consider making a gift to support our work.</a></div>

</div>

<p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.6563px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Global Coal Sales is <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/12/03/globalcoal-asia-idUSJAK47646520091203" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">part owner</a> of the <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/firstenergy-and-boich-companies-sell-partial-interest-in-signal-peak-coal-mine-to-gunvor-group-132043123.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">Signal Peak Mine</a> in Montana. It <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/12/03/globalcoal-asia-idUSJAK47646520091203" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">hopes to become a player</a>in US coal exports to Asia—and Westshore Terminals in British Columbia has claimed to ship Signal Peak coal—but it is probably best known for being <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Signal_Peak_Mine" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">plagued with problems</a>. As Derf Johnson has ably documented, <a href="http://meic.org/2013/05/signal-peak-energy-violates-safety-standards-disputes-fines/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">the company has avoided paying taxes even as it has been fined repeatedly</a> for sins such as failing to properly ventilate its mines, failing to prevent cave-ins, and failing to report workplace accidents.

Global Coal Sales is also linked to Cloud Peak. According to <a href="http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2013/10/18/3265922/coal-interests-give-100k-to-save.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">reporting by Ralph Schwartz</a>, (and<a href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=236500387" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">other</a> <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/steve-read/18/8a4/597" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">sources</a>), the former head of export sales at Cloud Peak, Steve Read, took a job as executive VP of Global Coal Sales in May 2013.

They are also major league Republican donors. Individually and through Quintana, they have<a href="http://data.influenceexplorer.com/contributions/#b3JnYW5pemF0aW9uX2Z0PVF1aW50YW5hJTIwTWluZXJhbHMmZ2VuZXJhbF90cmFuc2FjdGlvbl90eXBlPXN0YW5kYXJk" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to top Republican candidates</a> like <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000036912" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">John Boehner, Mitt Romney, Ted Cruz</a>, and even groups you wouldn’t think would need outside money, such as the Idaho Republican Party.

The Robertsons are linked to the Northwest coal export debate. Corbin is <a href="http://www.nrplp.com/default.aspx/MenuItemID/508/MenuGroup/About.htm" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">CEO of Natural Resource Partners</a> (NRP), a Houston-based investment firm that owns coal, oil, and gas reserves. According to its website, <a href="http://www.nrplp.com/default.aspx/MenuItemID/505/MenuGroup/_About.htm" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">40 percent of NRP’s holdings are made up by Arch Coal properties</a>, and Arch Coal badly wants into the Northwest export business. Arch has a <a href="http://news.archcoal.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=107109&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1515428&highlight" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">38 percent stake</a> in the Millennium Bulk Terminals proposal in Longview, Washington, and it is actively lobbying for new coal export capacity in Washington. (In fact, it was a conversation with a senior Arch Coal executive that recently <a title="Coal Export PR Flak Caught on Tape" href="http://daily.sightline.org/2013/10/08/coal-export-pr-flak-caught-on-tape/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">landed PR flak Lauri Hennessey in hot water</a>.)

<p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.6563px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Donahue made his donation in late August, making him the first contributor on record for Whatcom County’s pro-coal PAC. He is a financial planner who lives in Bellingham. He runs <a href="http://assetadvisorsllc.net/about-us/meet-our-team/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">Asset Advisers LLC</a> from an office in the Fairhaven neighborhood, and he hosts a <a href="http://assetadvisorsllc.net/about-us/wealth-wake-up/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">weekend talk radio program</a> in town, “Wealth Wake Up with Dick Donahue.” Donahue appears to be <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnkjh9reoYs" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">affiliated with the Tea Party</a> as well as with <a href="http://www.irehr.org/issue-areas/treaty-rights-and-tribal-sovereignty/item/478-take-these-tribes-down" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">an anti-Indian movement</a> that aims to reduce the autonomy of tribes.

<p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.6563px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Occupying <a href="https://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&q=1300+n+state+st,+bellingham,+wa&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x5485a3be99dfc96f:0xc5770f0a219978e7,1300+N+State+St,+Bellingham,+WA+98225&gl=us&ei=UV9lUq39LqiciQLF6IHgBA&ved=0CC4Q8gEwAA" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">a nondescript building</a> in downtown Bellingham, <a href="http://www.saturna.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">Saturna Capital</a> is an investment firm that manages <a href="http://seattlebusinessmag.com/article/masters-money-saturna-capital" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">several billion dollars worth of mutual funds</a>. The firm has carved out a niche in<a href="http://www.amanafunds.com/retail/news/20120215bestislamicassetmngr.shtml" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">Islamic investing</a>, which requires abstaining from investing in banks, liquor, gambling, and other verboten enterprises.

The Saturna contribution is odd looking. According to the Washington Public Disclosure Commission, <a href="http://www.pdc.wa.gov/MvcQuerySystem/AdvancedSearch/ContributionsData?contributee=ALL&electionYear=ALL&dateFrom=&dateThru=&amountFrom=&amountThru=&committeeType=IGNORE&election=ALL&city=&state=&zip=&contributor=saturna&employer=&occupation=&description=" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">Saturna has only once before made any type of political contribution</a>. That was in 2003, and it was merely a few hundred bucks of “in-kind” contributions in the form of office space for an employee, <a href="http://www.brightscope.com/financial-planning/advisor/879816/Brett-A-Bonner/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">Brett Bonner</a>. And the firm itself is <a href="http://sustainableconnections.org/directory/saturna-capital" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">a member of Sustainable Connections</a>, a network of local Whatcom County businesses that aim to “<a href="http://sustainableconnections.org/about/vision/index_html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">model an economy built on sustainable practices</a>.”

On the other hand, <a href="http://www.pdc.wa.gov/MvcQuerySystem/AdvancedSearch/ContributionsData?contributee=ALL&electionYear=ALL&dateFrom=&dateThru=&amountFrom=&amountThru=&committeeType=IGNORE&election=ALL&city=&state=&zip=&contributor=&employer=saturna&occupation=&description=" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">Saturna CEO Nicholas Kaiser is a major donor to Republican campaigns</a>, including an August 2013 gift of $6,400 to the Whatcom County GOP—<a href="http://www.pdc.wa.gov/MvcQuerySystem/CommitteeData/contributions?param=V0hBVFJQIDIyNw&year=2013&type=party_county" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">the largest donation to the party</a> by far—as well as smaller contributions to unsuccessful gubernatorial candidates Rob McKenna and Dino Rossi. Other employees also show up as smaller donors to Republican candidates, including to <a href="http://daily.sightline.org/2013/06/07/weekend-reading-6713/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">the bete noir of state climate policy, Senator Doug Ericksen</a>.

If the $3,500 contribution to Save Whatcom comes from Saturna Capital itself, as it appears, that makes it ripe for a local divestment campaign of some sort. If, on the other hand, the contribution actually originates from Kaiser or some other Saturna employee, then it is in clear violation of state election law and should be corrected immediately.

<h3 class="widget-title" style="font-weight: normal; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;">We are a community-supported resource and we can’t do this work without you!</h3>

<h1 class="title-news" style="font-weight: normal; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 20px 0px 0px; border: 0px; overflow: visible; line-height: 36px;">Vancouver, Washington Oil Train Terminal Approved By Port Commissioners</h1>

AP  |  Posted: 07/23/2013 3:52 pm EDT

</div>

VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — Port of Vancouver commissioners voted Tuesday to approve a lease for a Columbia River terminal that would take in crude oil by train from North Dakota and ship it to West Coast refineries.

About 60 people were at the port's office for the vote, which followed Monday night's public hearing, The Columbian reported (http://bit.ly/11ccypC ).

The project will be reviewed by the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, which will make a recommendation to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee for a final decision.

Port managers recommended approval of the deal with Tesoro Corp. and Savage Cos. for the economic benefits. Neighborhood and environmental groups oppose it because of safety and ecological risks.

Oil trains from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota would run through the Columbia River Gorge and Vancouver.

Demonstrators outside Monday's hearing held banners in French and English that read, "In solidarity with Lac-Megantic," a reference to the Quebec town where 50 people were killed on July 6 when a runaway train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded.

Vancouver and Portland members of the national environmental group Climate Parents presented the three port commissioners with 14,000 signatures demanding they reject the Tesoro-Savage plan. Speakers at the workshop said the terminal would increase the risks of oil spills, releases toxics into the air and worsen climate change.

Tesoro is a current tenant at the port. With Savage it wants to build a 42-acre terminal with six storage tanks capable of handling 360,000 barrels a day for shipment to 19 West Coast and British Columbia refineries, The Oregonian reported (http://bit.ly/13AAtzW ).

By comparison, the Alaska pipeline is averaging 559,000 barrels a day this year, according to Alyeska Pipeline Services. A barrel is 42 gallons.

The Vancouver terminal operation would involve as many as four, mile-long oil trains a day, operated by Burlington Northern Santa Fe.

The 10-year lease would bring the port $4.5 million a year. It currently operates on revenue of $34 million a year.

The companies also would invest up to $100 million in the terminal that would employ 120 workers, and agree to rail and operation safety plans.

Tesoro, Savage and Burlington Northern Santa Fe have said they'll use modern equipment, rail cars and double-hulled vessels.

BNSF invested $100 million in railway upgrades last year in Washington, including track through the Gorge, spokesman Gus Melonas told The Oregonian. The company is training emergency response personnel in Stevenson and Vancouver on tank car operations, he said.

Trains already deliver oil to the U.S. Oil refinery in Tacoma and the Tesoro refinery near Anacortes. BP plans to build a rail yard at its Cherry Point refinery north of Bellingham.

An oil terminal already is operating on the Columbia at a former ethanol plant at Port Westward near Clatskanie, Ore. Other oil terminals are proposed in Tacoma and Grays Harbor County.

_

Information from: The Columbian, http://www.columbian.com

</div>

===

<div class="byline environment"><a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/">Center for Food Safety </a>[1] / By <a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/michele-simon">Michele Simon</a> [2]</div>

<h1 property="dc:title" datatype="" class="node-title">Junk Food Lobby Forced to Disclose Secret Donors in Campaign to Stop GMO Labeling</h1>

</div>

<div class="story-date">October 23, 2013  |  </div>

Just a few weeks ago, attorneys for the No on 522 campaign were feeling rather smug when a lawsuit filed against them by a group called “Moms for Labeling” was dismissed. As <a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/2645/junk-food-lobbyists-sued-for-money-laundering-in-washington-state" target="_blank">I wrote last week</a> [3], consumer class action attorney Knoll Lowney sued the No on 522 and the Washington DC-based Grocery Manufactures Association (lobbyists for major food corporations) for not disclosing the donors behind GMA’s $7 million-plus donation to stop I-522, which would require genetically-engineered foods to be labeled. The judge threw out that case on a technicality.

But then, Big Food’s arrogance got the best of them.

Last Wednesday, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson picked up where the Moms for Labeling lawyer left off by <a href="http://www.atg.wa.gov/pressrelease.aspx?&id=31448#.UmXeilPFovk" target="_blank">filing his own complaint</a> [4], which adds stunning detail to the allegations in the original suit. In case you’re not familiar with what the attorney general does, he or she is the state’s top law enforcer, but often has limited resources to act. So when the AG’s office decides to come after you, it’s a very big deal, far bigger than a private attorney doing so.

The new lawsuit also accuses GMA of violating the state’s campaign disclosure laws, and alleges that the trade group secretly gathered more than $7 million from its members. Not content to just collect food industry money illegally, or even discreetly, GMA had the chutzpah to a designate a special account dubbed the “Defense of Brand Strategic Account,” for a strategic, “multi-pronged approach” to fight labeling laws, including Washington’s I-522.

And this scheme didn’t just pop up recently either; rather the shady deal-making was in the works for months, soon after the narrow loss of Proposition 37 in California. The plan was hatched at a GMA board meeting this past January to fund future anti-labeling efforts with “a preference for GMA to be the funder of such efforts, rather than individual companies.” That’s because brand names like PepsiCo and General Mills took a lot of heat from upset consumers. So, as GMA CEO Pamela G. Bailey explained in a February memorandum, a plan to “better shield individual companies from attack” was quickly approved; GMA sent its first round of invoices to members by March and the second round went out in August.

The dollar figures are staggering: GMA earmarked ten million dollars to oppose I-522, meaning that when the trade group made its first contribution to No on 522 in May—a paltry $472,500—it knew it was only getting started, something the public would learn by August when it donated another $1,750,000. In September, GMA dropped $5 million in one load, which now makes sense considering how long they had been taking collections. But if the two lawsuits hadn’t stopped GMA, chances are it would have spent even more. As of October 7, GMA collected almost $13.5 million dollars but had only spent $7.2 million, meaning it still has more than $6 million left in its arsenal. That can buy a lot of TV ads.

In fact, Attorney General Ferguson <a href="http://www.kirotv.com/videos/news/video-dc-group-accused-of-illegally-influencing/vCF3ZJ/" target="_blank">said</a> [5] this case represents “the largest amount of money ever concealed in an election.” Way to go team.

Barely 48 hours after the attorney general filed suit, GMA <a href="http://www.atg.wa.gov/pressrelease.aspx?&id=31450#.UmXwKVPFovl" target="blank">waved a white flag</a> [6], disclosing the <a href="http://www.eatdrinkpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/GMADisclosureWA.pdf" target="blank">list of donors</a> [7] it had so adamantly refused to give Moms for Labeling. Topping the list were old favorites like PepsiCo ($1.6+ million), Nestlé ($1+ million), Coca-Cola ($1+ million), and General Mills (almost $600K). But all the major food groups are also represented. Not only soda companies, but also Sunny Delight and the juice bottler Clement Pappas & Company are named. For canned foods, GMA hit up Del Monte and Hormel Foods, maker of Spam. And who knew that the <a href="http://www.cloroxprofessional.com/products/soy-vay/at-a-glance/" target="_blank">Clorox Company owns Soy Vay marinades</a> [8], which explains its $12K donation to the Defense of Brand Strategic Account.

Before releasing its list of donors, though, GMA put out a <a href="http://www.gmaonline.org/news-events/newsroom/gma-statement-on-washington-state-ag-complaint-related-to-no-on-522-campaig/" target="_blank">statement</a> [9] saying it was “surprised to learn that the Washington State authorities viewed the association’s actions as improper.” Maybe GMA’s lawyers (aren’t they all lawyers?) were too busy making a paper trail of its wrongdoing to read up on the state campaign finance laws they were so sloppily trying to circumvent.

Then, when GMA released the donor data (on Friday at 3pm, wonder why?), the lobbyists had the nerve to <a href="http://www.gmaonline.org/news-events/newsroom/gma-statement-regarding-washington-state-lawsuit-on-funding-of-no-on-522-ca/" target="_blank">claim</a> [10] to be doing so “in the spirit of continuing cooperation and in an effort to provide Washington voters with full transparency.” That’s the spirit. But even more impressive was GMA’s decision to “voluntarily establish a Washington State political committee and to file reports disclosing the source of all funds used in connection with Washington State elections.” Let’s unpack that: GMA is volunteering to follow the law after the state’s top law enforcer sued them to stop violating it.

Meanwhile, Lowney and Moms for Labeling aren’t done yet. Yesterday, Lowney <a href="http://fusewashington.org/momsforlabelinglawsuit/index.html" target="_blank">filed another suit</a> [11], incorporating the attorney general’s allegations, and asking the judge to “sequester” the same amount No on 522 illegally concealed – more than $7 million – to pay future penalties.

In the new <a href="http://www.eatdrinkpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/COMPLAINT-UNDER-RCW-42.17A-w_exhibits.pdf" target="_blank">complaint</a> [12], No on 522 is not only accused of concealing the source of its donations, but also intentionally misleading Washington voters by falsely reporting the source of the $7.2 million. Not satisfied with the disclosures made last week, this suit wants the court to order No on 522 to: 1) stop running advertisements that don’t reflect the accurate top five contributors; 2) admit that earlier disclosures were false and disseminate corrected information; 3) file corrected campaign finance reports; 4) discontinue receipt of contributions from GMA; and (my personal favorite) 5) pay a penalty in the amount of the contributions it concealed – more than $7.2 million.

GMA hasn’t responded to that suit yet, but in the meantime, Ferguson’s office <a href="http://mynorthwest.com/174/2375859/Wash-AG-to-still-seek-penalty-against-food-group" target="_blank">isn’t backing down</a> [13] after the initial disclosures either. Janelle Guthrie, communications director for the Washington State attorney general’s office told me that the state’s “lawsuit continues with regard to setting penalties.”

The Moms for Labeling lawsuit highlights the important role that private litigation has in getting state officials to force Big Food’s compliance with the law and big kudos to the attorney general for doing so. Let’s hope we see more of it.

And if you’re keeping score, that makes three lawsuits filed so far against an industry that will stop at nothing to keep consumers in the dark. Washington State voters should really be asking, when they see the next ad opposing 522: if this campaign is willing to break the law, how can we trust anything they say?

Meanwhile, it’s not too late to help the <a href="http://yeson522.com/" target="_blank">Yes on 522 campaign</a> [14].

</div>

<div class="tags">See more stories tagged with:

<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/labeling" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">labeling</a> [16],</div>

<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/right-know" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">right to know</a> [18]</div>

</div>

<div class="print-source_url">Source URL: <a href="http://www.alternet.org/food/junk-food-lobby-forced-disclose-secret-donors-campaign-stop-gmo-labeling">http://www.alternet.org/food/junk-food-lobby-forced-disclose-secret-donors-campaign-stop-gmo-labeling</a></div>

==

Leading Washington State Christian Right groups include the Christian Coalition, Eagle Forum, and the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. The Washington Republican Party is dominated by Christian Right forces.

<a href="http://www.publicgood.org/reports/spectrum/">http://www.publicgood.org/reports/spectrum/</a>

===

lummi fight coal

==

<a href="http://www.alternet.org/print/food/monsanto-and-big-foods-new-ploy-win-hearts-and-minds">http://www.alternet.org/print/food/monsanto-and-big-foods-new-ploy-win-hearts-and-minds</a>

--------

</div>

</div></div>