July 2014

Hello carbon tax friends: Read on for our open letter to the Western States Petroleum Association, but first some news and readings for the week:

* New ballot language: Here’s the new ballot language we got from the Secretary of State’s office in response to the test-run initiative we filed earlier this month. We’re hoping some more tweaks will allow for additional improvements (like a specific mention of the Working Families Rebate) but for now here’s what we’ve got: Initiative Measure No. 673 concerns taxes. This measure would impose a tax on certain fossil fuels, phase in a one percentage-point retail sales tax reduction, reduce certain manufacturing and processing business taxes, and increase certain tax credits and rebates. Should this measure be enacted into law? Yes [ ] No [ ] . Feedback welcome in the comments section below, and/or on Facebook and Twitter! more

Hello carbon tax friends: Lots of great developments to report this week!

* The case for a carbon tax: This morning Sightline published an overview of the latest iteration of our CarbonWA proposal and its benefits in terms of policy and politics: “Why Washington State Should Adopt a BC-style Carbon Tax.” Please check it out and spread the word, including on Facebook and Twitter! more

Update: Here is an updated version of the Carbon Tax Calculator (with a tab for households and a tab for business!) and here is an updated methodology document. Feedback welcome on the blog or via email to [email protected], and stay tuned for an online version of the household calculator in September. Thanks to the calculator team (led by UW computer science grad student Justin Bare, with help from Alan Borning, Summer Hanson, Marcia Baker, and yours truly) and thanks to volunteers Aven, Dennis, Eileen, Gwen, Jane, and Sharad for helping us test the calculator!

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Hello carbon tax friends:

* Campaign team deliverables: Kyle Murphy and the campaign team are going to make connections with each major college campus in the state by this fall and are also going to secure the endorsement of 10 organizations willing to help with signature gathering. We also want to expand our social media presence, so please Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. (Akua Konadu and Ben Silesky are in charge of these accounts and we want to grow them by about 10% per month, heading towards 500 Likes on Facebook and 150 Twitter folllowers by the fall.) more

Hello carbon tax friends, this week we’ve got some updates and a couple of requests for help, plus an event in Olympia and some readings about the national REMI study and more!

* Tax swap calculator update: We are making great progress on our summer policy team deliverables (creating a carbon calculator tool and exploring policy and legal alternatives) and in fact the calculator is coming along so well that we are now looking for volunteers to help us design and test our methodology. If you’re willing to spend 60 minutes over the next week or three chatting with us via email and/or on the phone, digging up your 2013 year-end utility statement, etc., please let me know and we’ll get you in the loop! more

Hello carbon tax friends: Summer and Akua and I have been working so hard on the policy side of our campaign that I forgot to send out an email last week (!), but we’ve been making great progress and in fact are happy to announce the following campaign deliverables that we will finish by the end of the summer: more