Washington ballot Initiative 2066 , known as the “Stop the Gas Ban” initiative, is intended by supporters to benefit home- and small-business owners with cheap, reliable energy. However, opponents say it reverses Washington’s efforts to reduce the usage of fossil gas in order to lessen their contribution to climate change.
Specifically, it “would require utilities and local governments to provide natural gas to eligible customers; prevent state approval of rate plans requiring or incentivizing gas service termination, restricting access to gas service, or making it cost-prohibitive; and prohibit the state energy code, localities, and air pollution control agencies from penalizing gas use.” It would also repeal a recent state prohibition on natural, or fossil, gas service in new buildings served by Puget Sound Energy, which provides electricity to much of the Puget Sound area.
This is how the proposition is worded on your ballot:
Initiative Measure No. 2066 concerns regulating energy services, including natural gas and electrification.
This measure would repeal or prohibit certain laws and regulations that discourage natural gas use and/or promote electrification, and require certain utilities and local governments to provide natural gas to eligible customers.
Should this measure be enacted into law?
Yes
No
Let’s Go Washington, the multimillionaire-bankrolled advocacy organization that successfully pushed several conservative laws through the Legislature last year and has been accused of violating campaign rules , gathered the signatures to get the initiative on the ballot. It’s a response to restrictions on fossil gas and proposals to ban its use in new buildings by local government bodies — including a 2021 proposal by a subcommittee in Spokane.
If Initiative 2066 is approved in November, local governments could never ban the use of fossil gas, and the state of Washington could not encourage Washingtonians to prioritize alternatives to the fuel (though local governments could help people install appliances that don’t run on fossil gas).
Why are we calling it “fossil gas”? Because the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication conducted a survey showing that use of the term “natural gas” gave respondents the inaccurate impression that the fuel is safe for the environment and health. Fossil gas is one of several commonly used fossil fuels, which scientists say drive global warming and respiratory diseases.
Fossil gas is a significant source of potent climate-warming and disease-causing emissions. Scientists say that unless the extraction and use of fossil fuels is stopped, global warming will continue causing seas to rise, fire seasons to lengthen, floods to worsen, crops to become more difficult to raise, invasive species to spread and wildlife to die off.
Hallie Balch, a spokesperson for Let’s Go Washington, said the organization does not deny that fossil fuel emissions are causing climate change. But she framed the initiative as an economic benefit for consumers.
“The whole point of 2066 is allowing the people to have a choice,” Balch said. “If the people in a local government decide that they want to create a program that provides aid to people who want to retrofit to electric, or people that want to get a heat pump, or whatever it is … then certainly they can do that.”
Industry groups like the Cascade Natural Gas Corporation , the Building Industry Association of Washington , the American Gas Association and the Teamsters National Pipeline have opposed attempts to limit fossil gas around the country. Let’s Go Washington has raised more than $6 million for Initiative 2066 and several other initiatives it’s championing, including a $200,000 gift from Bruce McCaw, a former cell phone mogul and communications investor who’s on the Forbes 400; a $100,000 donation from Osprey Investors, which invests in agriculture, aviation, financial services, human capital, industrial, marine, real estate and transportation; and $500,000 from the Building Industry Association of Washington.
Balch sent RANGE a spreadsheet listing more than 400 businesses from around the state, including several in Spokane, that she said use fossil gas to heat their buildings and support Initiative 2066.
Let’s Go Washington’s opposition is being led by Civic Ventures , an organization founded by the multi-millionaire venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, which ran streaming ads attacking Let’s Go Washington founder Brian Heywood, a Redmond farmer and hedge fund manager, in July. A No on 2066 campaign has raised about $100,000 — including a $2,000 donation from the WA Conservation Voters Education Fund and a $34,000 in-kind contribution from Washington, D.C. nonprofit Rewiring America.
Missing the emissions
Fossil gas is used to generate electricity, heat homes, cook food and make chemicals like fertilizers and hydrogen. Its use has increased — in concert with energy produced by wind and solar — in the past 15 years as use of “dirtier” fossil fuels has shrunk and now makes up about 40% of electricity generation in the US. But its share is much smaller in Washington, accounting for only 18% of electricity generation, as the state boasts abundant hydroelectric and renewable electricity resources.
In recent years, electricity generated from renewable sources like wind and solar has become cheaper than that created by fossil fuels — including gas.
While it’s cheaper and less carbon intensive when burned than other fossil fuels, fossil gas is nevertheless one of the most significant contributors to climate change for two reasons:
- First, its main byproduct is not carbon dioxide (CO2), which is produced by coal, petroleum and gasoline, but methane, which traps nearly 30 times the heat of CO2.
- Second, many emissions stemming from the production of fossil gas are unaccounted for because methane emissions are difficult to detect, and leaks from valves and broken pipe welds are common. No one knows just how much methane leaked into the atmosphere is missed in government and industry measurements.
“Low altitude studies have been done, and they’ve been turning up more heavy gas emissions coming out of things like [Texas’s] Permian Basin, which is the biggest oil and gas field in the United States,” said David Camp, one of the founding board members of the local chapter of 350.org , which advocates for climate-friendly policies in the Inland Northwest. (Camp was not speaking to RANGE as a representative of 350.org.)
“They’re looking at leak rates at 10% or higher there,” he added. “If you’re leaving 10%, then you’re two or three times worse than coal.”
Camp led the Buildings and Energy Work Group for the city of Spokane’s Sustainability Action Subcommittee in 2021 and proposed that the city “eliminate gas hookups from all new commercial and multifamily residential buildings by 2023, and from all new construction by 2028,” according to a column Camp wrote in the Spokesman .
Such a proposal would be illegal if Initiative 2066 were approved.
The march away from fossil gas
Camp’s idea didn’t go anywhere in 2021, and proposals to ban fossil gas have a fraught history after a federal court overturned the first ban in 2019.
Last year, Washington builders’ unions, power utilities, construction companies and fossil gas associations banded together to sue the state’s building code officials over a proposed ban on fossil gas appliances installed in new construction. The Washington State Building Code Council delayed its decision on the proposal for 120 days, but later implemented a watered-down version allowing installation of gas-fueled appliances if builders make up for the lost efficiency elsewhere in construction.
Still, there is a slow march away from fossil gas in some sectors of the US economy. States and local governments around the country, including Washington and the areas around Seattle, have proposed banning or limiting fossil gas.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee recently signed House Bill 1589 , which pushes Puget Sound Energy — the state’s largest utility — to more quickly move away from fossil fuels to reach a state-mandated goal of providing 100% renewable energy to its 1.2 million customers by 2045.
Initiative 2066 would repeal parts of the HB 1589 law and force local governments to provide fossil gas in the future.
The idea behind the proposals is to disincentivize the use of fossil gas and therefore fight climate change. Some European governments are already replacing the heat provided by fossil gas with heat pumps, which has proved to be a necessary component of heating systems as fossil gas supplies were destabilized when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
States and cities, including Spokane, are following suit. The Gonzaga Institute for Climate, Water and the Environment was recently awarded a nearly $20 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency — the largest grant in GU’s history — millions of which will go to installing heat pumps in low-income housing around Spokane.
Fossil gas is becoming a smaller part of the energy portfolio for Washington utilities, and efforts to create new climate-friendly infrastructure may hasten that trend. The vote for or against Initiative 2066 on Nov. 5 will determine how fully local governments can participate in the transition.
Further Reading
For even further reading on the proposal to prohibit Washington governments from banning fossil gas, check out the news articles below.
Washington voters will decide whether to restrict government agencies from discouraging natural gas with I-2066 — Samantha Wohlfeil, The Inlander
Does Washington need a band to prevent natural gas bans? — John Stang, Cascade PBS
Measure to prevent phasing out of natural gas in WA is on track for November ballot — Jerry Cornfield, Washington State Standard
Builder launch initiative to block Washinton’s natural gas phaseout — Jerry Cornfield, Spokane Public Radio
The post Initiative 2066: Ballot measure wants to slow WA’s march away from fossil gas appeared first on RANGE Media .
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