Voters in Washington state delivered a resounding endorsement of climate action on Tuesday. They overwhelmingly rejected Initiative 2117, which would have repealed the state’s cap-and-invest law, the Climate Commitment Act. In fact, as of the latest ballot count, with 80 percent of votes counted, Washingtonians opted to keep the Climate Commitment Act by a bigger margin than the one by which the dependably blue state voted for Vice President Kamala Harris. A signal of widespread support to prioritize climate action—and not go backward—even sounded from places in Washington that Donald Trump won handily, like Spokane County.
As of this writing, the other anti-climate ballot initiative, Initiative 2066, which would roll back the state’s efforts to power buildings with clean electricity instead of burning gas, is still too close to call. Confusion over the double negative language of that ballot measure, deceptive booster messaging about what it would do, a less well-funded “no” campaign than the one focused on defeating I-2117, and a (misleading, error-ridden) “yes” endorsement from the Seattle Times likely all contributed to I-2066 being a far closer race than that for I-2117. Still, that votes on I-2066 are so close—51 percent in favor and 49 percent against—is indicative of support for climate action among a broad swath of Washingtonians. (If I-2066 passes, it is also likely to face legal challenges in the coming months.)
Now that the election is over, what’s next for climate policy in the Evergreen state? In short, it’s time to get back to work, passing more policies that will put Washington state on track to meet its legally required greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
And to be clear, when we’re talking about emissions and climate policy, we’re talking about things most people want in their everyday lives: clean air to breathe and water to drink; safe and toxics-free homes, schools, and businesses; vibrant, connective neighborhoods free from highway noise and pollution; and a shared path of accountability and commitment to a more stable climate future.
With federal climate action likely at a standstill (at best) over the next four years, Washington can keep moving forward. Below, Sightline outlines four ways that Governor-elect Bob Ferguson and Washington lawmakers can model climate action for the rest of the United States, including:
- Round out the Climate Commitment Act to fulfill what the legislature and voters intend for it to do: cut pollution, including from gas utilities and big polluting facilities, and uphold its environmental justice commitments.
- Advance climate action at the Utilities and Transportation Commission, which regulates investor-owned gas utilities, including by appointing a climate champion as commissioner.
- Build the grid Washington needs to support its clean energy future.
- Double down on neighborhood-scale thermal energy networks, the highly efficient carbon-free networks of water pipes and ground-source heat pumps that are popular with environmental, labor, and consumer advocates.
After all, Tuesday’s results show that climate is a winning issue in Washington.
1. Round out the Climate Commitment Act to hold polluters accountable and advance environmental justice
The Climate Commitment Act is one of Washington’s most powerful climate policies. Washingtonians voted to uphold that law by a nearly 24-point margin, as of the latest ballot count. Still, the Climate Commitment Act as written does not guarantee that Washington meets its climate or environmental goals. Now that voters have unequivocally made clear that they want to retain the state’s cap-and-invest program, lawmakers can get to work filling in its gaps. They can do that in at least three ways:
A. Hold gas utilities accountable to reducing emissions, rather allowing them to simply pay to keep polluting
Big polluters in Washington state, including gas utilities, can comply with the Climate Commitment Act by either reducing their emissions or purchasing emissions allowances to cover their pollution. (Each emissions allowance is equivalent to one metric ton of carbon dioxide.) The state reduces the number of emissions allowances available each year, thus ratcheting up the price of pollution, and, the theory behind cap-and-invest goes, incentivizing companies to reduce their emissions.
However, none of the gas utilities in Washington state actually plan to reduce their emissions to comply with the Climate Commitment Act. Instead, they plan to buy allowances to keep pollution levels virtually unchanged over the coming crucial decades. That’s according to the companies’ most recent integrated resource plans filed with regulators. (Gas utilities receive a declining number of free allowances each year from the state, to mitigate the cost of compliance on their customers. They can purchase more allowances to pollute in quantities beyond what the free allowances cover.)
Put another way: if Washington policymakers don’t act, gas utilities technically can comply with the Climate Commitment Act without reducing their pollution at all. That outcome certainly wasn’t lawmakers’ intent when they passed the Climate Commitment Act, nor likely what voters had in mind when they rejected I-2117 on Tuesday.
HB 1589, the gas utility planning bill that applies to Puget Sound Energy, Washington’s biggest utility, was a first attempt by the legislature toward holding the utility accountable to actual emissions reductions. As of this writing, I-2066, which would repeal parts of that law, is still too close to call.
But even if I-2066 ultimately passes, it will only be by the thinnest of margins. Legislators should not interpret that as a rebuke to policies that enable the transition from polluting gas to cleaner, greener homes. Instead, a climate-forward legislature can build and improve on HB 1589. Massachusetts’ 2021 Climate Roadmap bill offers perhaps the best example for Washington. That law, which unlike HB 1589 applies to all gas utilities in the state, holds companies to meeting their proportional share of emissions reductions. It is also far less complicated than 1589 is: it simply requires companies to reduce their pollution, which most Washingtonians showed on Tuesday that they want.
B. Create a plan to reduce emissions from big polluting facilities, including oil refineries and pulp and paper factories
Washington is home to dozens of major polluting facilities, from oil refineries to pulp and paper factories. About 40 of these companies are designated emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries, or EITEs, under the Climate Commitment Act. EITEs are companies that Washington deems to be vulnerable to out-of-state competition; the state thus allocates them free emissions allowances.
But Washington has not yet reckoned with the need to slash EITEs’ emissions to achieve the state’s climate goals. Washington provides free allowances to EITEs equal to 100 percent of their baseline emissions for the Climate Commitment Act’s first compliance period (2023–26), decreasing to 94 percent of baseline emissions by the third compliance period (2031–34). Washington has no plan for how many allowances to allocate to the EITEs after 2034, nor any policies in place to lower EITE emissions to the level the state’s greenhouse gas reduction mandate demands.
In 2022, the Washington state Department of Ecology put forward a bill that would have continued ratcheting down EITE’s free allowances after 2034, from 88 percent of baseline emissions in 2035 to roughly zero by 2050. But policymakers declined to adopt it into law. The Department of Ecology is now preparing a report to submit to the legislature by the end of 2025 with recommendations for EITE emissions allowance allocation.
At a minimum, the new Washington legislature would be smart to follow the Department of Ecology’s 2022 proposal and set declining EITE allowance amounts that are consistent with the Climate Commitment Act’s emissions cap after 2034. If the legislature does not adopt an allowance policy for these entities by December 1, 2027, the state’s EITE entities will continue to receive free allowances equivalent to 94 percent of their baseline emissions, a level wholly inconsistent with the state’s vision for a cleaner, safer climate future.
C. Uphold Washington’s commitment to environmental justice by more thoughtfully deliberating linkage of the state’s carbon market with California and Quebec’s
Finally, lawmakers can take more seriously the concerns raised by environmental justice groups about the prospect of linking Washington’s cap-and-invest market to California and Quebec’s.
Lawmakers wrote the Climate Commitment Act with the intention of being able to hook into the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), California and Quebec’s cap-and-invest market. When they passed the Climate Commitment Act in 2021, Washington policymakers established three criteria that must be met for the markets to connect:
- Any linked jurisdiction must ensure that benefits of the program reach overburdened communities;
- Linkage cannot adversely impact either jurisdiction’s vulnerable populations; and
- Linkage cannot hinder Washington state’s ability to meet its emissions limits.
In October 2023 the Department of Ecology published a report that determined that linkage would likely meet the first criterion, but the report came to no definitive conclusion about the second or third. Nonetheless, the Department recommended that Washington move forward with linkage. In response, in March 2024, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 6058, which made technical changes to the Climate Commitment Act to make it easier to sync up the markets.
But lawmakers would be smart to slow down until they have answers to all three of the criteria they originally laid out. Washington’s Environmental Justice Council argued that the state should not pursue linkage since the Department of Ecology’s report left uncertain whether linkage would negatively impact overburdened communities and populations. Front and Centered, a coalition of communities of color-led organizations in Washington, also criticized the Department of Ecology’s findings, arguing that linkage could worsen pollution in overburdened communities since California’s environmental justice requirements are less stringent than Washington’s. Before moving full steam ahead with linking the markets, lawmakers owe Washingtonians an answer to the effects linkage will likely have on vulnerable populations and the state’s ability to meet its emissions limits.
2. Advance climate action at the Utilities and Transportation Commission, including by appointing a climate champion Commissioner
One of the first and most important climate decisions Governor-elect Bob Ferguson will make is whom to appoint to fill the open seat at the Utilities and Transportation Commission after Chair David Danner’s term ends December 31, 2024. (Chair Danner has also been embroiled in controversy and has resisted Governor Jay Inslee’s calls to resign.)
The Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) regulates investor-owned gas utilities, among its other duties. By holding gas utilities accountable to emissions reductions and guarding against faux climate solutions like hydrogen for home heating, the UTC can play a critical role in curbing pollution from buildings, Washington’s second-highest-emitting sector.
What could a climate-forward UTC accomplish?
- It could require all gas utilities to show how they will achieve the state’s greenhouse gas emissions reductions mandates.
- It could demand that gas utilities plan for electrification, which study after study (including Washington’s own 2021 state energy strategy), shows is the cheapest and most efficient way to decarbonize buildings.
- It could prevent gas utilities from profiting from gas system expansion if non-gas alternatives, such as electrification or energy efficiency, are viable (a position Massachusetts regulators adopted in 2023).
- It could require that gas companies identify opportunities to shrink the gas system, to save ratepayers from paying for a bloated gas system.
With the right leadership and clarity of purpose, the UTC could be the most exciting place for climate action in the building sector in the coming years.
So far, though, the UTC has not taken these actions, despite numerous directives from lawmakers that arguably enable it to.
To make crystal clear the UTC’s mandate in helping the state achieve its climate targets, the 2025 legislature could enshrine this duty into this state policy. Again, Massachusetts’ 2021 Climate Roadmap bill offers inspiration: it made explicit that that state’s utility regulators’ mandate includes prioritizing “reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to meet statewide greenhouse gas emission limits.” With the right leadership and clarity of purpose, the UTC could be the most exciting place for climate action in the building sector in the coming years.
3. Bolster the electric grid to enable Washington’s shift to clean power
The anti-climate initiatives on Tuesday’s ballot interestingly did not take aim at another of Washington’s most powerful climate laws: the Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA). CETA requires the state to shift away from burning coal and gas to generate electricity and toward renewable sources like solar and wind. The law mandates that electric utilities’ portfolios be completely carbon-free by 2045.
But achieving CETA’s mandates is not a given. One big thing that could get in the way? Inadequate electric transmission capacity. The Northwest needs new wires to be able to tap the best wind and solar power, which is often located far from the homes and businesses that need the juice. But the region is seeing very little in the way of construction of these critical lines. One of the only major new transmission lines in the Northwest, the Boardman to Hemingway project in Idaho and Oregon, has yet to break ground, more than 20 years after developers first proposed it.
Unfortunately for state policymakers, many of the changes that could help ready the Northwest grid to respond to climate change require regional or federal action. (One reason for that is that most of the Northwest’s grid is owned and operated by the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency not under state jurisdiction.)
Still, Washington policymakers can do their part. For example, they can devote more of the state’s budget to Washington’s permitting and siting agency, the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, and to tribal capacity grants, in an effort to speed permitting review times. They could also spare no-brainer transmission reconductoring and rebuild projects from review under the State Environmental Policy Act.
Washington lawmakers can also encourage the Bonneville Power Administration to use more of its federal borrowing authority to proactively build new lines. BPA has no profit motive, and it has access to some of the lowest-cost financing available. BPA building new lines is thus one of the cheapest ways to get it done. In parallel, Washington lawmakers could establish a state transmission entity to partner with non-utility transmission developers and issue government-backed revenue bonds, following the lead of Colorado and New Mexico. That type of entity could help work around utilities’ reticence to invest in transmission.
No matter what, the grid deserves more of Washington leaders’ attention as the state shifts to cleaner power.
4. Double down on thermal energy networks: a win-win-win for the environment, labor, and gas customers
In 2024, Washington lawmakers unanimously passed House Bill 2131. The law granted gas utilities the ability to deploy thermal energy networks instead of offering gas and authorized a $25 million grant program for thermal energy network pilots, funded by revenue from the now-safe Climate Commitment Act. Given the close vote on I-2066—an initiative that also deals with the gas transition—the 2025 legislature would be smart to invest more attention and resources to thermal energy networks, a politically popular gas transition option.
What are thermal energy networks, also known as TENs? In short, they are neighborhood-scale highly efficient carbon-free networks of water pipes and ground-source heat pumps. They transfer heat in and out of buildings, often using the stable temperature of the ground, to provide heating, cooling, and often, domestic hot water. (They’re not to be confused with geothermal energy. Here’s more detail on how TENs work.)
TENs are exciting and popular because they could solve some thorny challenges of the clean energy transition: electric grid expansion, gas pipeline workforce redeployment, and equitable access to clean energy. TENs are extremely efficient, lessening the strain on the electric grid that could come from decarbonizing heating. They offer a pathway for gas utility workers to redeploy with little or no retraining, applying the same skills and expertise used for gas pipelines to the water pipes that carry clean thermal energy. And, since the neighborhood-scale networks pass by every building on the block, neighbors of all income levels can tap into the system, much the same way the gas pipeline system has been available to communities over the past century.
These triple benefits help explain why building and construction unions (including the UA Plumbers and Pipefitters union, which represents gas pipeline workers), environmental nonprofits, gas utilities, and grassroots activists all supported HB 2131 in 2024.
Washington lawmakers can build on this broad coalition of support for TENs in the 2025 session. For example, they could follow New York’s lead and require gas utilities to submit TENs pilot projects for regulator review, rather than simply making pilots possible, as HB 2131 did. Lawmakers could also direct the Washington UTC to develop a framework for regulating TENs, offering more certainty and clarity around this new business model to both utilities and their customers. Finally, lawmakers could devote more money from the Climate Commitment Act to TENs pilots, now that that cap-and-invest revenue is here to stay.
Washingtonians want climate action
Voters handily rejected an initiative to repeal the Climate Commitment Act, one of the state’s most powerful climate laws. And the vote is still too close to call on other anti-climate initiative I-2066, with nearly 50 percent of votes counted so far rejecting that measure—an impressive number given the initiative’s confusing language, a misleading “yes” endorsement from the state’s biggest newspaper, and the relatively scrappy No on 2066 campaign.
Tuesday’s vote confirmed what we already knew: that the vast majority of Washingtonians want more, not less, climate action. Again, it’s worth breaking down what climate action actually means: it’s the water in our taps, the appliances in our homes, the air outside our doors, and the neighborhoods we move around—with our family and friends and neighbors, with kids in the local schools, with workers in safe, good-paying, family-wage jobs, and so much more. It’s a future we want to live in, together.
The state’s newly elected leaders, from Governor-elect Ferguson to the expanded Democratic majority in the state legislature to the Republicans representing counties that voted to keep the Climate Commitment Act, would be wise to take note of and inspiration from the millions of voters who stepped up to defend the state’s model policies. With the Climate Commitment Act safe from repeal and with federal climate progress looking unlikely (at best) over the next four years, Washington state can be a climate beacon.
