This Election Day, U.S. voters will be deciding on more than their government representatives. In many states, voters will be asked to weigh in on initiatives and referenda—146 in all—addressing a wide range of issues, including financing for infrastructure, voting rights, criminal justice reform, and raising the minimum wage.
There are also ballot items with ties to science, including an initiative to repeal Washington state’s first-of-its-kind carbon trading system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and a Colorado proposition to ban trophy hunting.
One, Initiative 2117, aims to undo major portions of the Climate Commitment Act (CCA), a 2021 law that established a market-based cap-and-invest program aimed at reducing carbon emissions from major industries. The program is one of the first in the United States to put a price on emitting carbon—as of September, about $30 per ton. It requires companies to buy permits to emit carbon at quarterly auctions or on a secondary market. Over time, the total quantity of allowed emissions will decline, with a goal of eliminating carbon emissions from regulated industries by 2050.
Washington Governor Jay Inslee (D) has been a major proponent of the program. But backers failed to persuade voters to implement it through ballot initiatives in 2016 and 2018, instead relying on the legislature to approve it in 2021. Now, critics of the CCA—who say it is driving up everyday costs—are urging voters to kill it.
Since the program took effect on 1 January 2023, it has raised more than $2.1 billion that the state government has spent on hundreds of transportation, environmental justice, clean energy, conservation, and tribal-led projects. But opponents, funded largely by Republican hedge fund executive Brian Heywood and his organization, Let’s Go Washington, say the program has increased costs for consumers, especially at the gas pump, without appreciably reducing emissions. “It doesn’t do anything to take carbon out of the atmosphere,” Heywood says. “It just makes it more expensive. … I think it’s a grift.”
Supporters of the program say it was not designed to reduce emissions quickly, and that “putting a price on pollution” is key to dealing with environmental problems and helping low-income and vulnerable communities cope with the impacts of climate change. If Initiative 2117 passes, it will cause “budget chaos” everywhere from transportation to fisheries, says Kelsey Nyland, deputy communications director for the No on 2117 Committee, a coalition opposing the initiative. Other states, such as Oregon and New York, are also watching the fate of Washington’s carbon pricing system, she says.
The second ballot measure, Initiative 2066, is also backed by Heywood, as well as the Building Industry Association of Washington. It aims to prohibit state and local governments from banning or restricting the use of natural gas, including efforts to make natural gas more expensive in order to incentivize investment in other energy sources.
Opponents of the initiative say it is largely a response to a bill passed earlier this year by Washington’s legislature that is designed to incentivize large utilities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by moving away from fossil fuels. Heywood and the initiative’s supporters have claimed the bill reflects a state goal to eventually ban the use of natural gas, and even take away residents’ gas cooking stoves.
That’s false, says Michael Mann, executive director of the advocacy group Clean & Prosperous Washington. The recent legislation has “been mischaracterized” as a natural gas ban, he says, adding: “The science is clear that we need to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels over the long term.”
Proposition 127 asks Coloradans to institute a state trophy hunting ban. The ban, which would protect mountain lions, bobcats, and lynx, only targets hunting for sport, not sustenance. In Colorado, trophy hunting for big cats typically involves packs of dogs, as well as electronic devices that can track the cats with precision. Those practices have led to a market for “guaranteed kills” that activist groups argue is inhumane.
Opponents of Proposition 127, led by the Colorado Trappers and Predator Hunters Association, warn it represents a “slippery slope” that will lead to a total ban on hunting. They also argue that hunting big cats helps regulate ecosystems and prevent overpredation of animals such as elk and deer, which help support a large hunting industry. They say a ban would cause cascading effects that would force the Colorado Parks and Wildlife agency to change how it manages ecosystems. The website of one group opposing the measure, Colorado’s Wildlife Deserve Better, states: “Decisions about science-based management efforts should be rooted in science, NOT the ballot box.”
But, “There’s no science behind” the claims that trophy hunting benefits ecosystems, says Barry Noon, ecologist emeritus at Colorado State University who signed a letter from 22 scientists favoring the ban. A ban would not cause a big cat population boom, he says, because there is limited habitat and food. The letter also notes that lions help curb the spread among ungulates of chronic wasting disease, a highly contagious prion disease, by removing sick animals.
More: https://www.science.org/content/article/some-u-s-states-science-ballot
