Archive link: https://archive.ph/IwIFq

Archive link: https://archive.ph/D1XmS

I didn’t see a paywall, but here you go:

With less than a month to go before voters decide the fate of Washington’s carbon market, its architect shared a bottle of Sanpellegrino and a heated debate stage Thursday night with the champion of the effort to repeal it.

The debate and question-and-answer session at Seattle University covered familiar ground, echoing past arguments made about the policy’s effect on climate change and gas prices. Taking the stage were former state Sen. Reuven Carlyle, a Democrat who helped write the legislation creating the carbon market, the Climate Commitment Act, and Brian Heywood, the driver of a ballot initiative to repeal the cap-and-invest system.

Heywood’s group, Let’s Go Washington, collected hundreds of thousands of signatures last year to get the repeal initiative before lawmakers, who declined to take up the initiative, sending it to Washington voters.

Heywood lambasted the policy’s impact on gas prices Thursday night and asserted that the cap-and-trade program, which raises money from carbon auctions that is then used to fund environmental projects, amounted to a “grift.”

Carlyle defended the policy that he ushered through the Legislature in 2021 as a necessary action to force the state’s biggest polluters to pay their “fair share” amid worsening climate change.

Several times he mentioned that the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund labeled the law “the gold standard” for climate policy.

“It’s a gold standard for raising money off the backs of commuters,” Heywood quipped.

Heywood worked to keep his focus on the economic side of the issue, but moderators and questions from the audience turned him back repeatedly to the issue of human-caused climate change.

At first he hedged, saying anyone who doesn’t believe that humans have “an impact” on the environment is “a fool.” But Heywood later said there is no conclusive evidence that the warming atmosphere added any momentum to hurricanes. And he challenged the idea that people must eliminate, or cut back, on the use of fossil fuels.

Carlyle deflected accusations that the policy bumped up gas prices across the state, arguing those increases are more correlation than causation. He bristled at the widely publicized moment in which Gov. Jay Inslee predicted the impact would amount to pennies more per gallon.

“It’s just not true that 8 million people, one of the smartest, most educated states in the country, were hoodwinked by one five-second clip,” Carlyle said.

At the same time, officials with the Oil Price Information Service, political scientists and other analysts across the state acknowledge that oil and gas companies are passing on at least some of their added costs to consumers. In September, the policy was responsible for perhaps an extra 26 cents per gallon, one estimate showed.

Still, Carlyle said, the average price of gas in Washington in mid-October was about $3.96 a gallon and two years ago — before the state launched the carbon markets — it was closer to $5.20.

Scientists across the world broadly agree that the brunt of climate change is caused by people burning fossil fuels like gas, oil and coal. Global warming also contributes to more extreme weather, like the record hot waters in the Gulf of Mexico, adding to the size and speed of Hurricane Milton, which has ravaged Florida.

Initiative 2117 would not only repeal the legislation creating Washington’s carbon market, it would also bar state agencies from imposing any kind of carbon tax credit trading.

The battle over the initiative is one of the most expensive state-level races this election cycle, during which a trio of other ballot measures also await voters’ choices. Heywood is up against an opposition campaign, No on 2117, that has raised nearly $15 million to fight the repeal effort.

The Climate Commitment Act launched Washington’s carbon market last year, requiring the state’s top polluters to pay for their emissions by buying allowances at quarterly auctions. Immediately, the process sparked controversy across the state.

Early auctions saw such high allowance prices that the surge triggered multiple emergency auctions meant to act as a relief valve, but the fervor has since died down.

So far the auctions have raised more than $2 billion, which must be spent on green initiatives like rebates for heat pumps or electric vehicles, new charging stations and assistance for home insulation or utility payments.

Critics of the Climate Commitment Act often note that the policy has not yet reduced Washington’s greenhouse gas emissions. But the policy was also not designed to work this quickly. Over time, state officials will ratchet down the number of allowances sold, thereby reducing emissions.

The push and pull surrounding the policy, high prices and inflation across the country added momentum to the repeal effort, which might seem familiar to people in Washington. Voters shot down a carbon tax here in 2016 and a subsequent “carbon fee” proposal in 2018.

Should voters approve 2117 and repeal the Climate Commitment Act, the state’s carbon markets would shut down, ending a substantial fundraising mechanism for the years ahead. But Washington would still be bound by the Clean Energy Transformation Act, which requires the state to use an emissions-free energy supply by 2045.

Brian Heywood moved his company here from CA because, for some reason, he thought WA was less left leaning. It wasn’t, so now he has to use these initiatives to get breaks for himself and his own business. Fuck the GOP, and fuck Brian Heywood.

The family of a 23-year-old graduate student from India who was struck and killed by a speeding police officer in a South Lake Union crosswalk in 2023 has filed a wrongful death and negligence lawsuit against the city and police Officer Kevin Dave, who was cited for negligent driving but not criminally charged.

The lawsuit filed in King County Superior Court alleges Jaahnavi Kandula “experienced terror, severe emotional distress, and severe pain and suffering before dying” from injuries suffered when she was struck by Dave’s speeding Seattle police SUV at an unregulated crosswalk adjacent to construction along Dexter Avenue North.

An investigation showed Dave, heading to an emergency call, was driving 74 mph in a 25 mph zone when he struck Kandula in a crosswalk on Dexter at Thomas Street the evening of Jan. 23, 2023. Dave’s dashboard camera showed Kandula apparently trying to beat the speeding car across the intersection. The impact knocked her nearly 137 feet. Dave performed CPR on the woman until other officers and medics arrived. Kandula died that evening at Harborview Medical Center.

Outrage over her death simmered for months in Seattle’s South Asian communities before exploding internationally after publication last summer of a recording that depicted a city police union official laughing and downplaying her death, saying she had “limited value” and that the city should “just write a check.”

The officer who made those comments, Daniel Auderer, was vice president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild. He had left his body camera on while talking to SPOG President Mike Solan. After an internal investigation, interim police Chief Sue Rahr fired Auderer, saying his “vile” comments shamed the department and damaged law enforcement’s reputation everywhere.

In his comments, Auderer said Kandula was young and “had limited value,” and that the city should just write a check “for $11,000.”

In a tort claim filed last March with the City Attorney’s Office that preceded Friday’s lawsuit, the family said it was asking for damages of $110 million plus $11,000.

Ironically, Auderer had insisted during the internal investigation into his comments that the remarks were intended to mock the lawyers who have to try to put a dollar value on human life.

“I laughed at the ridiculousness of how these incidents are litigated and the ridiculousness of how I have watched these incidents play out as two parties bargain over a tragedy,” Auderer said in a prepared statement when his comments were first publicized.

Auderer had been called to the scene as a drug-recognition expert, and he determined Dave was not impaired. The conversation with Solan was recorded afterward, when Auderer apparently didn’t notice his body camera was still on.

Auderer has filed a $20 million claim for damages against the city. In the claim, he said he was retaliated against for his union leadership and that he was wrongfully terminated. As a result, he wrote, he’s suffered harm to his reputation and mental health.

The lawsuit alleges that the city of Seattle was negligent in hiring Dave, the officer who struck Kandula, and ignored evidence that he had been terminated by the Tucson Police Department for poor performance and misconduct, including an incident when he fled from police and was suspected of being under the influence of intoxicants.

The lawsuit also claims that Dave’s driver’s license was expired at the time he struck Kandula.

Dave was cited for negligent driving and subject to a fine of up to $5,000. He has contested the citation, according to the Seattle City Attorney’s Office.

Dave was responding to a call of a man who said he had overdosed. According to an investigation, Dave was driving with his emergency lights on, however he was only “chirping” his siren at controlled intersections. He was accelerating when Kandula stepped into the intersection, looked up and saw the oncoming SUV, and apparently misjudged its speed and tried to scurry across the street, according to an investigation conducted by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, which declined to file criminal charges against the officer.

common WA w. wish every state was like them.

Hmm, odd. Must’ve been light pollution, as I was able to pretty clearly see them north, west, east, and right above at around 11:20.

What time and direction?

Just watched it for about an hour. Absolutely stunning.