Campaign News

I-732 provides the best path to sustainably reduce carbon emissions. It will restore rural economic activity relating to timber — plus many jobs lost since the 2008 recession.

Producers of lumber, plywood, oriented strandboard, and engineered wood products have supported as many as 45,000 direct jobs and another 180,000 indirect positions in Washington. (Those include buyers and sellers of their product such as prefabricators and the building trades.) These sectors will see new opportunities to use wood resources to displace fossil-intensive products — offsetting their lack of participation in the slow economic recovery since the 2008 recession.

• The increased demand for wood that results from the I-732 carbon tax will support restoration of many of the rural jobs lost since the 2008 recession. This will help close the large gap between high unemployment in rural areas and lower unemployment in the largest cities.
• Wood-processing positions will increase with the increasing demand to displace fossil-intensive uses.
• Forestry and rural transportation jobs will increase with the higher demand for wood products — as well as the collection of underutilized wood fiber — made viable with the increase in their value.