Updates and Thursday Dec 4 meeting downtown

Hey folks: Please RSVP to me (yoram@smallparty.org) if you're coming to our next meeting, this Thursday Dec 4 12-1pm, in the 5th floor conference room at 1402 3rd Ave.

Agenda
* 12:00-12:10: Updates (see also below) and introductions
* 12:10-12:40: Policy options, including discussion of tax rates, low-income rebate, and spending options. A good focal point might be this spreadsheet: thenumbers.xls. The second and third sheets are mostly unintelligible, so focus on the first sheet. There are some details on low-income options &etc in a spreadsheet that Bruce has, hopefully we can post that too...
* 12:50-12:55: Next steps and next meeting downtown Th Jan 8, 12-1pm.

Updates
* I and others in the group continue to get feedback from different groups, including groups outside the traditional lefty circles. (I'm being intentionally vague here---hopefully more details coming soon.)
* On Nov 25 Catherine and Christy and I met with Jen Marlow and Jeni Barcelos, two UW law students who interned with Sightline and Washington Environmental Council to study legal issues about "cap-and-dividend", which proposes to redistribute cap-and-trade revenue to state citizens. (If you're curious they're also the main forces behind the "Three Degrees" conference on the law of climate change and human rights, coming up at UW May 28-29 2009.) My gloss on what they found was that (1) the state constitution prohibits gifts of public funds except to the "poor and infirm"; (2) there is no bright line definition of "poor and infirm", but we're almost certainly OK if we focus on the bottom income quintile (i.e., bottom 20%) or on folks below 40% of median income; (3) extending benefits above these levels may or may not be constitutional based on analysis of case law involving gifts of public funds; (4) it may or may not help to "phase out" benefits, i.e., have benefits decline slowly for folks in the 2nd income quintile so as to not have a rapid drop-off of benefits; (5) there's a wildcard if you can show that the spending furthers a "fundamental government purpose", e.g., providing daycare to single moms is legal even if the moms are not "poor and infirm"; (6) the expert on all this is UW law professor Hugh Spitzer, who teaches the class on Washington State constitutional law.

In the news

From the Nov 24 NY Times "Green Inc" blog: States Flirting With Higher Gas Taxes.

From an interactive sidebar in the Nov 19 Wall Street Journal: CEOs hunker down during crisis says that a task force of CEOs met to discuss priorities for the Obama administration. Among them: "Change tax code to encourage employment, job creation, investment, and enhance global competitiveness. Consider raising taxes on gasoline and broadening corporate tax base to lower rates."

From the wild side, I honestly have no idea what to make of this post about anti-cap-and-trade environmentalists.

Meeting at UW Tu Nov 25 12:30pm

Hey folks: Just a heads-up about a meeting on the UW campus this coming T, Nov 25, 12:30-1:20pm with Jen Marlow and Jeni Barcelos, two UW law students who interned with Sightline to study legal issues about "cap-and-dividend". (If you're curious they're also the main forces behind the "Three Degrees" conference on the law of climate change and human rights, coming up at UW May 28-29 2009.)

Anyone interested in joining should meet at the "Supreme Cup", the cafe in law school (on the ground floor across from Room 133; if you don't know where the law school is then click here). An RSVP to me would be nice too :)

Anyone who can't make it but has questions should send them to me! And of course there's our next downtown meeting on Th Dec 4 12pm.

Updates and next downtown meeting Dec 4

With election day over, let's get back to work!

Feedback: In the past few weeks I've pitched our general idea (replace the state property tax with a carbon tax) at a Sustainable Industries green business forum in Seattle, at a UW Earth Club meeting, and at an EOI dinner where I had the honor of sitting with Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown (also an economist!) and Bill Gates Sr. Nobody laughed at the idea, but I must confess that nobody was particularly gung-ho about it either. The #1 question I got---over and over again---was about revenue stability: "If the carbon tax succeeds in reducing carbon emissions, what's going to happen to state tax revenue?" My belief is that we need to address this question either by (1) changing our proposal to a property tax rebate or a property tax holiday instead of a property tax repeal, or (2) changing our proposal to include a steady increase in the carbon tax rate, something that would also be a good idea from an environmental standpoint. This is something we can discuss---along with definitions of low income &etc---at our next meeting...

Next meetings: Our next downtown meeting is scheduled for Thursday Dec 4 12-1pm. I am also working on scheduling meetings at UW on some Tuesdays 12-1pm and will post notices about those as they occur.

Yoram's pep talk: I think we are very close to having an idea that we can start pitching in op-eds &etc, and as luck would have it my comedy career is providing me with facetime with some movers and shakers: last week the CEO of Puget Sound Energy said he wanted me to perform for his staff, next week I'll see Lisa Brown again, and---heck---I may even have a coffee date with Todd Myers! My point is not to brag unnecessarily (Todd Myers is actually kind of boring :) but rather to suggest that we're not just spinning our wheels. Yes our effort is a long shot, but doing anything about climate change is a long shot and we have an out-of-the-box idea and a variety of ways to plant a bug in the ear of important people. We're continuing to move forward with the website (thanks Catherine and Christy and Chistopher!) and on the policy front (thanks Bruce!) and we should keep going!

No meeting Thursday

Hey folks: I'm going to cancel Thursday's meeting, so our next downtown meeting will be Thursday Dec 4 and then Thursday Jan 8.

For anybody on or near the UW campus, I'll be talking carbon taxes (and performing some comedy) for the UW Earth Club on Thursday Nov 6, 4:30-5:30pm in Mary Gates Hall Room 258.

Upcoming meetings

Hey folks: Just a heads-up about three upcoming meetings:

Tuesday Oct 28 (tomorrow), 12-1pm in UW's Suzzallo Library, room 334, to discuss next steps, especially regarding outreach on campus. (Thanks to Jason for arranging the room.)

Wednesday Oct 29, 7:30pm in the Greenlake neighborhood, to discuss the website. (Email me for details.)

Thursday Nov 6, downtown, to discuss next steps and policy details. Please email me if you're planning to come to this meeting because there's a request to change the time from 12-1 to 12:30-1:30.

PS. Sorry for the late notice about these meetings and for the general lack of activity in the last week or two; I'm working on it!

Notes from Thursday Oct 9 meeting

In brief

• The campaign's draft website continues to improve. Comments are welcome!
• The test-run initiative we filed has generated lots of food for thought. If you still have comments don't hesitate to toss them in the mix...
• The Western Climate Initiative (WCI) continues to falter. Without wishing it ill, we should be prepared to capitalize on the resulting vacuum.
• Katherine Bragdon came to our last meeting and gave us the low-down on signature-gathering campaigns. Her advice in a nutshell is to either (1) find $700,000 to pay signature gatherers, or (2) mobilize an army of volunteers and find $700,000 to pay for the office and staff necessary to coordinate that army.
• Next downtown meeting: Th Nov 6, 12-1pm, 1402 3rd Ave, 5th floor conference room. Tentative agenda focus on policy details, e.g., Bruce's work on low-income payments.
  
• UW meetings: Tentatively T 12-1pm starting Oct 28. Email Yoram if you want more details.
  

In length

• In attendance (as private citizens unless noted otherwise): Catherine, Bruce, Katherine Bragdon, Yoram.
  
• The campaign's draft website received a major facelift thanks to the generosity of Outward Focus Design and the ongoing efforts of Catherine and Christy et al. Comments are welcome!
• The test-run initiative we filed has generated lots of food for thought. The most important part of the ballot title is the Concise Description, which is what would appear on the ballot: "This measure would repeal the state property tax supporting public schools and impose a new fee on fossil fuels, directing the fee revenue to education, low-income people, alternative-energy research, and business tax reductions." If you have thoughts about possible revisions that stay within the 33-word limit----note that hyphenated words count as one----then please post or email them. (Keep in mind that in order to make changes if and when we resubmit this measure we'd either need to change the underlying text of the initiative or file a lawsuit in Thurston County Superior Court :) Less important is the ballot measure summary, but one comment that came out of the meeting was that "education" deserved pride-of-place in the last sentence and not "alternative energy research".
• The Western Climate Initiative (WCI) continues to falter. Rumor has it that it's going to be hard to get legislative approval in all states and that OR is going to be a particularly tough sell unless there are major loopholes for forestry offsets. In Washington, rumor has it that WCI is dead if Rossi is elected and dead if Gregoire is re-elected unless she puts serious political capital into it, and even then it has only a 50-50 shot and will probably features lots of grandfathering and not much auctioning. (Next step is draft legislation from the Dept of Ecology, due out in early December.) At the federal level it is also clear (at least in my crystal ball :) that climate change is falling way down the list of priorities. All together this means that come springtime we are likely to have a lot of frustrated enviros looking for action, and we should be ready to capitalize on that.
• Next downtown meeting: Th Nov 6, 12-1pm, 1402 3rd Ave, 5th floor conference room. Tentative agenda focus on policy details, e.g., Bruce's work on low-income payments. It would also be great to talk about the tax rate and other parts of the nitty-gritty.
• UW meetings: Tentatively T 12-1pm starting Oct 28 with a tentative agenda focus on outreach efforts to other schools and groups. Email Yoram if you want more details.

Katherine Bragdon
Signature-gathering guru Katherine Bragdon came to our last meeting and gave us the low-down on signature-gathering campaigns. Nuggets from her talk:

1. It takes about 310,000 total signatures to get the 225,000 valid signatures you need to get on the ballot now, and this number will go up after the November election.
2. Paying for signatures costs about $2 per signature, or about $700,000 total.
3. You can expect to pay about the same for staff and office &etc to run an all-volunteer signature-gathering effort, and the ones that she's done lately have only had the umph for 50% volunteer signature-gathering; the good news is that having a volunteer effort gives you assets that are useful in the general election campaign.
4. She's done all-volunteer efforts in the past on animal rights issues, but animal rights advocates are crazy passionate and committed; the only other campaign that did a massive all-volunteer effort was the repeal-the-gas-tax referendum (I-912) in 2005 that gathered 420,000 signatures in just 30 days.
5. Polling the ballot language is crucial, and that costs about $20,000; you want to start with support of around 65% since it only goes down once advertising starts.
6. She's tried to enlist students to help with signature gathering but found them to be lacking in follow-through.
7. The top 250 people in each campaign she's done were responsible for about 75% of the total signatuers; the rest were mostly folks who gathered from friends-and-family rather than at public events.
8. The internet is great for communicating with loyal supporters but is hard for recruiting new volunteers and it doesn't replace phone calls or letters as ways of organizing and reaching out to supporters. (I'm not sure I agree with her on this one, but then again she's the expert.)
   
9. If we could gather pledges for 500,000 signatures she would be impressed but still not at all confident that they'd follow through, and consequently not at all confident that we'd make the ballot.
10. Organizing beforehand is crucial, and it would be a huge help to have organizations on board to contribute time/staff/money/mailing lists/etc.
    
11. All of her campaigns have been Initiatives to the People, which gather signatures between about Feb 1 and June 30; she hasn't done an Initiative to the Legislature, which gathers signatures between about April 1 and Dec 30, but strongly recommends setting a target date for completing of October, before the weather turns bad, because you don't want to have to struggle through bad weather in December to meet your target.

Great work everyone!

Ballot language and meeting Thursday noon!

Hello all: We're meeting this Thursday 12-1pm in the 5th floor conference room of the Joseph Vance Building, 1402 3rd Ave (at Union). Initiative guru Katherine Bragdon will be coming to talk about volunteer signature gathering efforts for ballot measures.

And, speaking of ballot measures, here's our ballot title and ballot summary from the secretary of state:

Ballot title [This is what would appear on the ballot]

Statement of subject: Initiative Measure No. 417 concerns taxes and fees.

Concise description: This measure would repeal the state property tax supporting public schools and impose a new fee on fossil fuels, directing the fee revenue to education, low-income people, alternative-energy research, and business tax reductions.

Should this measure be enacted into law? Yes [ ] No [ ]

Ballot measure summary [This would appear in the voters pamphlet and elsewhere, but I don't think it would appear directly on the ballot.]

This measure would repeal the state property tax for the support of the common schools and reduce certain taxes on businesses. It would also impose a new fee on the extracting, processing, refining, or importing of fossil fuels, including natural gas, petroleum, or coal. Revenue raised by the fee would be used for alternative energy research at universities and colleges, common school education, payments for low-income people, and reductions to the business and occupation tax.

Food for thought, and please post your comments online or via email or bring your thoughts on Thursday! You can see more (including Tim Eyman's I-419, also a property tax measure :) on the Secretary of State's website.

New draft and meeting change to Thursdays?

Hello all:

1) Here's the bill language that I've submitted to the Secretary of State! We should get a ballot title &etc by Oct 7. Thanks to everyone who provided feedback, and note that we still have a bunch of work to do; in particular, Bruce has volunteered to work on the low-income definition, so anybody who wants to get in the loop on that should holler!

2) I'd like to propose that we change our next two meetings (and maybe all future meetings) from Tuesday to Thursday, so please comment on the blog or email me if that works or doesn't work for you. The reason for changing the Tu Oct 7 meeting to Th Oct 9 is that signature-gathering guru Katherine Bragdon can't make the 7th but can make the 9th. The reason for changing the Tu Nov 4 meeting to Th Nov 6 is that on the 6th we'll know more about the direction of state government &etc. And if we're going to change the next two meetings, maybe we should just change all of them to Thursdays, so please comment on the blog or email me to let me know (both for Oct and Nov in particular and for all future meetings in general) if that works or doesn't work for you.

3) Folks in the U-District who are interested in meeting periodically (weekly? biweekly?) should email me to get in the loop. We're just starting to explore dates and times &etc.

4) Agenda items for our next meeting (tentatively Th Oct 9 12-1pm downtown):
* Quick updates on legislative news, ballot measure news, internal stuff, speaking engagements &etc.
* Katherine Bragdon talking and taking Q&A about signature gathering campaigns.

Cheers!
yoram

Initiative draft from Code Reviser's Office!

Here's the draft the Code Reviser's office came up with based on the language I sent them and a few email exchanges. Some comments:

• I'm working on getting a .doc version of this.
• We now get to review this draft and make comments or revisions, and we have to do this before our next meeting on Oct 7! We must file a final version by October 2, at which point it goes to the Secretary of State to get a ballot title, summary, number, etc.
• Remember that this is just a test run, so we don't have to set everything in stone right now. Having said that, it would be good to take advantage of this opportunity to revise the text, so here are some questions I have... please add your own in the comments section or via email!
  
• Question #1 is about the definition in section 10(3): "Low income means household income that is at or below one hundred twenty-five percent of the federally established poverty level." This language came from an unrelated piece of state legislation, and I don't know whether or not it's appropriate for our purposes.
  
• Questions #2 and #3 are in a similar vein: Question #2 is about the part of section 4(1) that property owners are not eligible for the low-income sales tax credit: Is this a good idea or not? Question #3 is whether it's worth looking into a declining-credit structure so that there's not a precipitous drop-off, e.g., with someone receiving the full credit if their income is $x and receiving zero credit if their income is one dollar more than that?
• Question #4 is about section 10(1), which says that we're using metric tons instead of short tons. The difference isn't all that much (1 metric ton is about 1.1 short tons, so a $50 tax per metric ton is a bit less than $50 per short ton) but it's worth pondering for the sake of completeness :)
• FYI, the Code Reviser's Office gave me some push-back about calling this a "fee" instead of a "tax", but eventually they agreed. (They argued that a fee is something paid for a service, like a drivers license, and they went along with the argument that this is a fee for polluting the air.)
  

Notes from Sept 2 meeting

In brief

• Unless someone has last-minute corrections or wants to volunteer to file a "test" ballot measure (don't be shy :), Yoram will file a test ballot measure containing the language here.
  
• Yoram will email State Senator Eric Oemig, who asked us for ideas to look at, with a list. Details below, but the five ideas we decided on were (1) a clean energy competitive grants program, (2) sales tax credits for low-income households; (3) energy-efficiency program tied to county-level property tax credits; (4) efforts relating to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program; and (5) administrative costs of these and of imposing a global warming pollution fee.
• Next meeting downtown 12-1pm on Tuesday Oct 7. Will also investigate meeting with students at UW once the school year starts in late September.

In length

• In attendance (as private citizens unless noted): Christy, Catherine, Yoram.
• WCI update: Rumor still has it to expect fireworks when the WCI releases their proposal Sept 22. Permit allocations should be especially contentious.
• Website update: Catherine continues to update the website. The email sign-up form is now functional, so anyone who wants to test it is encouraged to do so. (It would be good to test it in different browsers.)
• We agreed to send Sen Oemig the following list of exploratory ideas: (1) a competitive grants program to fund clean energy R&D programs; (2) use of funds to make direct cash payments to low-income households, preferably in the form of a sales tax credit; (3) use of funds for county-level programs that provide local property tax credits for energy efficiency investments; (4) options for adding funding and/or programs to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program; and (5) estimates of administration costs for the global warming fee and for the ideas listed above.
• Unless anyone hollers in the next day or two, Yoram will file a "test" ballot measure containing the language here, which is modified in fairly minor ways from the pre-meeting version. (Perhaps the biggest change is from "carbon tax" to "global warming pollution fee" :)
  
• Next meetings on the first Tuesdays of the month (e.g., Oct 7, Nov 4, Dec 2) 12-1pm downtown. Will also look into involving UW students when school starts up again.
  

Draft agenda for Tuesday Sept 2, 12-1pm

Hey folks: Here's a tentative agenda for our meeting on Tuesday (the day after Labor Day), 12-1pm in the 5th floor conference room of the Joseph Vance building (1402 3rd Ave downtown). Let me know if you have additions or changes, and if you can't make the meeting don't hesitate to comment on the blog or via email/phone/etc.

Overview
5 min (12:00-12:05) Introductions and updates.
5 min (12:05-12:10) WCI update.
20 min (12:10-12:30) Legislative work.
20 min (12:30-12:50) Ballot measure work.
5 min (12:50-12:55) Next steps.

12:00-12:05 Introductions and updates.
Updates limited to subjects (internal documents, speaking engagements, etc.) not covered below.

12:05-12:10: WCI update.
The WCI is set to release their final proposal on Sept 22, and rumor has it that the WCI is in trouble, e.g., because of disagreements about permit allocations. There's not much more to say here, but it does add some credence and urgency to our work.

12:10-12:30: Legislative work.
In an earlier post I noted that State Senator Eric Oemig is keen on carbon taxes and asked us for questions to pursue with his staff. Our goal for Tuesday is to pick and choose questions and ideas from the ones I posted earlier and/or ones that folks have come up with since then. This is not a brainstorming session, so email me ASAP if you want to add anything to the list below:

1. Can the revenue be used to provide dollar-for-dollar property taxes rebates as in Tim Eyman's I-892? Or do tax reductions and revenue generation have to be treated separately for some reason?
2. Is it possible to rebate local property taxes, or to provide lump-sum funds to counties to fund energy-efficiency efforts of their choosing?
3. Can the revenue go into a cascading pool-type system, where it gets used to rebate tax X, and then if anything is left over it gets used to rebate tax Y, etc?
4. Funding for clean energy R&D and/or other programs (e.g., "green jobs") at state colleges and universities?
5. Funding for energy efficiency programs, either tied to or separate from property tax rebates?
6. Require and/or fund motor vehicle tune-ups, which Aaron K says could increase gas mileage by up to 7%?
   
7. Funding for B&O investment tax credits? (Todd says he has legislative language on this.)
8. Concurrent with property tax reductions, should there be reductions in "excise taxes in lieu of property taxes"? These are described in detail in the state's Tax Reference Manual, but the basic idea that these include five taxes (on aircraft, watercraft, timber, Public Utility Districts, and leaseholding) that generate a small amount of state revenue ($0.28m, $16m, $9m, $17m, and $22m, respectively, compared with $16 billion for the state property tax)
9. Sales tax exemptions for new cars?
10. Ideas for offsetting impacts on low-income households include

• (a) additional funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP);
• (b) money for rapid-transit serving low-income neighborhoods;
• (c) rebates to low- and middle-income workers for the purchase of fuel-efficiency vehicles;
• (d) "green jobs" programs;
• (e) funds to reduce bus fares,
• (f) direct cash payments to low-income households; and
• (g) using the revenue to fund the Working Families Credit. (This last option is on ice because proponents of the Working Families Credit are opposed to this.)

12:30-12:50: Ballot measure work.
In our last meeting we agreed to file a test initiative shortly after Tuesday's meeting. Since this is just a test initiative, we don't need to be too careful about this, but I'm going to try to write up something to post online before the meeting. Until then, here are some issues to think about:

1. Are we still going to do this? (Just checking :)
2. What are we going to allocate revenue to? (Note that we don't have to go for the same ideas that we ask Sen. Oemig about; the two approaches----legislative and ballot measure---can substitute for or complement each other.)
3. Exemption for carbon sequestration?
4. Should we try to tax the carbon content of fossil fuels refined in WA but sold out-of-state?
5. What tax rate should we use?

12:50-12:55: Next steps.

1. Weekly or bi-weekly meetings at UW in addition to our downtown meetings?
2. Future downtown meetings 12-1pm on the first Tuesdays of the month: Oct 7, Nov 4, Dec 2, etc.

Notes from talk with Sen. Eric Oemig

Catherine and I talked with state Senator Eric Oemig last week.

In brief, he's keen on carbon taxes and wants us to suggest some questions that legislative policy folks could look into. We should aim to have this finalized by the end of our next meeting on Sept 2.

Here are some draft questions---please email me or post comments on this blog post if you have additions &etc----and below that are detailed notes from our conversation with Sen. Oemig.

* Can the revenue be used to provide dollar-for-dollar property taxes rebates as in Tim Eyman's I-892? Or do tax reductions and revenue generation have to be treated separately for some reason? Also, is it possible to rebate local property taxes, or just state property taxes?

* What about energy efficiency programs (tied to or separate from property tax rebates) and what about B&O investment tax credits?

* What ideas are there for offsetting impacts on low-income households? Some ideas from Aaron of the Economic Opportunity Institute are (1) additional funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP); (2) money for rapid-transit serving low-income neighborhoods; (3) rebates to low- and middle-income workers for the purchase of fuel-efficiency vehicles; "green jobs" programs. To this I would add two previously discussed ideas: (4) paying to reduce bus fares, and (5) direct cash payments to low-income households. A sixth idea, using the revenue to fund the Working Families Credit, is on ice because proponents of the Working Families Credit are opposed to this.

* Can the revenue go into a cascading pool-type system, where it gets used to rebate tax X, and then if anything is left over it gets used to rebate tax Y, etc?


In length, here are my notes from our talk with Sen. Oemig.

1) He had some doubts about whether the WCI had unstoppable momentum and said that he thought a carbon tax could work with the WCI since each state would get its share of credits---WA could have a carbon tax instead and buy or sell credits to even up emissions with the WCI target. [Note from Yoram: I'm not sure what the point of this would be, but stay tuned...]

2) It doesn't matter how good a carbon tax is, it's like a gas tax and everybody hates the gas tax. $20/ton of CO2 ($0.20 per gallon of gas) is too high, maybe $10/ton but that's pretty high too. How about using the carbon tax money to reduce the gas tax, so that there's no net increase in the gas tax?

3) We need polling data! He's doing a semi-scientific poll of voters in his district and hopefully will share the results with us.

4) Some folks in the legislature are pushing for regulatory alternatives: fuel efficiency standards, closing coal plants, etc.

5) It would be hard to get a carbon tax bill through the legislature, but it might be possible to get a bill through that puts a referendum on the ballot for the state's citizens to vote on. Then the legislators aren't saying "I support a carbon tax" but rather "I want to give my constituents options, so let's put this on the ballot."

6) He might not be the best person to introduce legislation, but he suggested some other folks who would be good.

7) He is willing to talk to some other folks and try to get some staff to work on legislation (!) once we get #8 done and get back to him.

8) To-do: Tighten up our brainstorming and have a list of questions to follow up on, e.g., can you spend money on XYZ? He said to think that the world is your oyster and that everything is allowed until someone tells you it isn't.

9) To-do: Contact other legislators (he gave me a bunch of names) and start to open lines of communication about this.

Notes from Aug 5 meeting

In brief

• The major decision at this meeting was to file a "test" initiative shortly before or after the end of the month. We are actively seeking ideas and/or (less important) legislative language to include in the filing.
• During the coming month we will also continue working on the website, PPT, one-pager, etc., with a goal of being ready to do presentations in the fall.
  
• The next downtown meeting is Tuesday Sept 2, 12-1pm and on the first Tuesday of later months (Sept 2, Oct 7, Nov 4, Dec 2).

In length

• In attendance (as private citizens unless otherwise noted): Catherine, Phoebe, Aaron, Christy, Yoram, Laura.
• We will not attempt to gather signatures for the test initiative---the point is to get the Code Reviser's Office to help us with legalese, constitutional issues, see what kind of ballot title the Secretary of State writes &etc. (All that for the discount price of... $5!) Details in this Guide.
  
• Christy is looking at clean energy R&D, Aaron is looking at energy efficiency ideas, Todd is looking at investment tax credits, and Yoram is working on some flowery legislative intent language and the carbon tax component. The big gap is that we currently have 15% of revenue set aside for offsetting impacts of low-income groups, and we desperately need ideas about what to do with this money, preferably from WA State Budget & Policy Center (here are their WCI comments) or Economic Opportunity Institute. So far all I know is that BP&C and Senator Craig Pridemore are both opposed to using the money to fund the Working Families Credit.
• We've made decent progress since last time on the website and PPT. Yoram will revise the PPT, Catherine and Christy et al. will continue working on the website. Phoebe is working on a one-pager.
  
• Aaron agreed to contact Sen Maralyn Chase to get her thoughts. Yoram will continue corresponding with Sen Pridemore and try again to reach Sen Oemig. Aaron and Christy are working on getting a speaking gig lined up with a renewable energy group.
  
• Western Climate Initiative update: The WCI is a group of states and provinces (WA, OR, CA, AZ, NM, UT, MT, BC, ONT, etc.) working on a regional cap-and-trade system with a goal of reducing covered emissions to 15% below 2005 levels by 2020, which works out to be about the same as getting back to 1990 levels by 2020. (Details.) The cap-and-trade will have a two-stage roll-out, with point sources (electricity generation and large facilities) starting in 2013 and non-point sources (gasoline and diesel--jet fuel does not appear to be covered) joining in 2016. (Details.) How many permits each state gets and what (if any) limits apply to how each state auctions or distribute its permits are both still to be determined, as is how to integrate the WCI cap-and-trade with BC's carbon tax. Whatever happens, BC's carbon tax is a great precedent for our effort, both by itself and in the context of WCI.
• Go team!
  

Updates on website, PPT, next meeting, etc.

There's been some great work the last two weeks, so here are some updates---comments are welcome on all of these, either via email or directly in the comments section of this blog! Note that there's a proposal at the bottom for our next meeting to be Tue Aug 5, 11:30am-12:30pm downtown. Please email or comment if you have different or better ideas!

1. PPT presentation: Yoram and Bill have a draft in both PPT and 6-to-a-page PDF.
   
2. Website: Catherine and Christy have an update (also accessible through the links on the right). You can post website comments on the website itself...
   
3. Facebook page: Michael set one up, here it is!
   
4. Vision and mission statements: Here's Jason's latest effort: Our vision is to improve Washington State's tax system through policies that will strengthen the economy and reduce global warming emissions. Our mission is to build a diverse coalition of people who actively support sound climate policies in Washington State. Our main objective is to lower existing property taxes in favor of a tax on carbon emissions. We will accomplish this goal through education and coalition building, as well as the encouraging policymakers and citizens to vote for related bills and citizen initiatives.
5. One-pager: Not yet ready.
   
6. Legislative contacts and other Olympia outreach: The only update here is that Sen. Eric Oemig (D-45th district, which is Kirkland/Redmond/Duvall/Carnation) asked for a meeting with Todd Myers to discuss his (Todd's) carbon tax proposal. Jason and Yoram are still working on their tasks here.
   
7. In-person meetings: How about if we aim for the first Tuesday of each month for a downtown lunch meeting? That would make the next one Aug 5, 11:30am-12:30pm. (Beyond August we can meet 12-1pm... thanks to everyone for accommodating my summer teaching schedule :)

Notes from July 2 meeting

In short
At the end of next week (Friday July 11), check in on these to-dos:

• Yoram and Bill to work on a PPT presentation.
• Catherine and Christy to work on the website. (Feedback from everyone welcome from the comments form on the website itself!)
• Jason and Catherine to refine the mission/vision statements. (See below, feedback welcome!)
• Phoebe to work on one-pager.
• Yoram and Jason to contact legislators and other Olympia folks.
• Yoram to suggest dates for August meeting.
• Michael to look into Facebook, Alice to continue building resource list.
  

In length
In attendance (as private citizens unless otherwise noted): Catherine, Bill, Jeff, Phoebe, Jason, Aaron, Christy, Yoram.

Legislative route
Discussions with legislators and other Olympia folks made it clear that getting this through the legislature would be tough, especially since it would probably be subject to Initiative 960, meaning that it would either need a 2/3rd majority or an "advisory vote" from the state's citizenry. Nonetheless, Bill found folks connected to House Democrats "more receptive than he thought they'd be."
To do:

• Yoram and Jason (others welcome!) to continue getting feedback from legislators and other Olympia folks and try to find someone willing to introduce legislation in January 2009.
  
• Yoram and Bill to work on a 5-10 min PPT presentation.

Initiative route
The most immediately feasible options are a 2009 Initiative to the Legislature or a 2010 Initiative to the People.

• The 2009 Initiative to the Legislature would require gathering 250,000+ signatures between March and December 2009 to put the initiative at the top of the legislative agenda in January 2010; the legislature would then have three choices---pass the measure (in which case it would become law), put it on the ballot in November 2010, or put both it and an alternative on the ballot in November 2010.
  
• The 2010 Initiative to the People would require gathering 250,000+ signatures between January and July 2010 to put the initiative on the ballot in November 2010.

To do: Yoram to invite signature-gathering guru Katherine Bragdon to come talk at a future meeting.

Vision and mission statements
Here are Jason's draft:

• Vision: To improve Washington State's tax system through policies that will strengthen the economy and reduce global warming emissions.
• Mission: Our mission is to build a diverse coalition of people who actively support sound climate policies in Washington State. Our main objective is to lower existing property taxes in favor of a tax on carbon emissions. We will accomplish this goal through education and coalition building, as well as the encouraging policymakers and citizens to vote for related bills and citizen initiatives.

To do: Everyone to offer feedback, Jason and Catherine to refine.

Policy details
We briefly discussed tax rates ranging from $5-$25 per ton of CO2, which are equivalent to $0.05-$0.25/gallon of gasoline. Perhaps there was a rough consensus on targeting around $1 billion in revenue, which would be a tax of about $10-15 per ton of CO2.
Also: Some folks from the legislature and elsewhere are keen on having more money directly funding energy efficiency efforts (e.g., property tax rebates only for specific projects), some right-wing folks are keen on funding a B&O investment tax credit, and the UW student crowd is keen on having money for clean energy research. We didn't reach much of a conclusion, but the general parameters are still in the range of 80% for property and business tax relief, 15% for low-income groups, 5% for clean energy R&D.
To do:

• Everyone to continue thinking about this
• Yoram to try to get specific ideas about the 15% for low-income groups
• Phoebe to work on a one-pager

Outreach
Have a website and a Facebook group as a public face, with this blog for international communications, this wiki for details on policy nuts and bolts, and this wiki for legal issues, policy brainstorms, relevant articles, etc.
To do:

• Catherine and Christy to work on the website, with feedback welcome through email and/or the comments section of the website.
  
• Yoram is in charge of the blog
• Michael is looking into Facebook