On Sunday, The New York Times spotlighted Gov. Jay Inslee's efforts to tackle the hairy environmental threat of climate change. Inslee claims that his proposal to tax the carbon emitted by the state's oil refineries, power plants and other industries will raise an estimated $1.3 billion in its first year. He'd spend those extra dollars, not on climate change-related efforts, but on transportation fixes and to comply with the State Supreme Court's mandate to fully fund K-12 education. "By linking the money to broadly popular bread-and-butter programs," writes The Times, the governor "hopes to build support for an antipollution policy that faces stiff opposition from Republicans and some industry groups."
The future of the governor's plan remains iffy. It went missing from budget proposals that both the state House and Senate submitted last week.
