Two ballot initiatives in Washington state could overturn the state’s trademark climate law and prevent any local or state government from ever pursuing any type of policies that “discourage” gas stoves and heating. Both campaigns are being championed by Brian Heywood, a hedge fund millionaire who moved from California to Washington to escape taxes. He’s also the principal of “Galt Valley Ranch LLC,” a Redmond, WA, ranch named for the libertarian hero of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

“Let’s Go Washington,” Heywood’s $8.5 million brainchild, initially collected signatures for a total of six “Citizens Initiatives.” Per state law, those can either be passed by the legislature or put to voters as a ballot initiative. Lawmakers can also draft an alternative measure to appear alongside them. The state’s thoroughly Democratic legislature opted in March to pass three of those into law: a prohibition on raising income taxes; a “parent’s bill of rights”; and an expansion of police’s ability to engage in car chases, including to pursue people with broken taillights. Washingtonians will decide on the other three next week, and one more initiative brought onto the slate this past summer. Among those are a bid to overturn Washington’s capital gains tax. Another would require that employees opt-in to a tax for funding long-term care.

Ballot Initiative 2117 (I-2117) would ditch the Climate Commitment Act of 2021, and bar lawmakers from enacting any bills like it. The Climate Commitment Act, which took effect in January 2023, established a cap on emissions for large polluters estimated to account for an estimated three-quarters of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. Companies regulated by the act need to acquire one “allowance” or carbon offset for every metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent they emit. Over time, the state makes fewer and fewer allowances available, meaning the price of each one rises and polluters have an escalating incentive to cut emissions. By statute, revenue from the sale of those allowances has to be spent on reducing transportation emissions, increasing public transit access, building clean energy and improving air quality, among other designated project buckets. The CCA is Washington’s main policy tool for meeting the statewide emissions reduction targets it codified into law in 2008 and updated in 2020, to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and 95 percent by mid-century.

The other climate-related ballot initiative Let’s Go Washington is backing is I-2066, which purports to “stop” a ban on gas stoves and heating that doesn’t currently exist. The initiative—a more recent addition Let’s Go Washington’s slate—would restrict the state’s energy code from being able to “prohibit, penalize, or discourage” gas hook-ups for cooking and heating, and preempt cities, towns, and state agencies’ ability to enact their own restrictions on gas in new and existing buildings. Because of how broadly a word like “discourage” might be interpreted, it could force lawmakers to amend Seattle’s new building emissions performance standard as well as the state’s energy code, which incentives electrified new construction. The measure would also specifically........

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