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.