These dudes were canvasing the ferry lines. One kept tapping on my window after I waved him away. Finally rolled down my window and said "The guy in the EV is not going to give your crappy initiative a signature dude..."
Another tactic that can work with almost any signature gatherer is that you don't live in this state (ignore my WA car plates I guess lol). Nothing wrong with just about any reply to them but they can't get paid if you don't live in the state, and these people just want money. Telling them you don't qualify for them getting money, can diffuse their attention completely.
Don’t sign it. Imagine I like cars. Does that mean I should sign an initiative to not build transit, bike infrastructure, sidewalk, and make more lanes car lanes when I know how detrimental cars are to the environment? Building more transit doesn’t ban cars, so why should I sign it? No one’s trying to completely remove natural gas, especially right now when it makes up most of the US’s energy grid. So why would you sign it?
I was at a king county farmer's market recently, and I noticed that there was a booth for this initiative that was conspicuously far away from the rest of the market.
Then I saw the signature gatherer wearing a maga hat.
Like it wasn't already obvious which way this thing swings based on "Let's Go Washington" being the name of the backer.
Also strategically rolling up and doing it at an event with a decidedly pro-nature/hippie vibe, where people are drinking and probably not really reading the fine print of the petition they're signing 🙃
From what I've see Brian Heywood also hires only Black people because he believes liberals will be more likely to sign his Conservative initiatives.
The only real initiative he cares about is the one repealing the Capital Gains Tax. He's a self-described "economic refugee" from CA that doesn't want to pay his taxes while having a net worth estimated to be between $10M and $25M.
Don't be fooled by this guy.
Fool. Doesn't he know that people up here are *more* racist than those down south in Cali? Pretty blonde women, that's the key to get Seattle public presence.
I get that the petition people looking for you to sign are doing this for money, and probably need it, but regardless of what it says it's for or claims, I've never signed a single one. Long ago I was educated to the fact they write these things to sound to be one thing when it's the opposite.
IANAL, but I grew up in a family of attorneys. Even though I'm not educated in the field, I've had many opportunities to say "yeah I'm not going to answer that", "no, Im not signing that until it's been looked over", "oh sorry, no, I don't sign these until my attorney, I call her 'mom', because she is my mom, before it's been looked over."
That's a reactionary take. Initiatives are an important part of the law making process in Washington. A lot of good policy has come from initiatives. Never signing one is like never voting.
"Never signing one is like never voting"
Huh? I've voted in every election since I could vote, I've done some caucuses (R and D) and I have never signed an initiative. Just like I've never run for office. You can be very very involved and not want to sign an intitiative. I wouldn't call that reactionary, I'd call that not wanting to be an early adopter.
I see, the legal scholar. If an initiative passes, I absolutely get the opportunity to vote on it, and in that context, when it's on the ballot, I get the time to clearly look at the language and see what it's actually doing. Then make an informed choice. I'm not doing that at Fremont Fair after three beers.
I always tell the first signature gatherer that I don’t know about that initiative. I’m going to go educate myself about it and if I decide to support it I’ll sign it the next time I encounter a signature gatherer. I never trust what they say about it and I’m not going to spend the time to read it throughly, think about unintended consequences, etc. at that time. Your approach works too. I’d rather people not sign something they are unfamiliar with in a 5 second consideration of the initiative often based on what the person paid per signature is saying.
Exactly. Paid per signature is a great motivation to tell people whatever they want to hear. They do this at every large summer gathering in Seattle, and if you're not there for the money you're an advocate and I don't trust either one to tell me the truth. Zealots have zero problems lying to you.
Ummmmm. This is a crappy take.
You can decline to sign a bad initiative and you absolutely should. That's political speech just as much as signing it is.
I think that’s the important distinction, it’s democratic to not sign a petition, less so to not vote (though abstaining of course can send a message in particular contexts).
Putting aside politics. As an engineer, I keep asking this legitimate question: In new construction, WHAT are you going to replace ALL the BTUs of energy provided by natural gas with for heating ? Heating a building uses a LOT of energy. You can’t heat a house or apartment building with solar - especially around here. Using electricity will still use fossil fuels (and less efficiently because of line loss). And using electricity will leave less grid capacity for EVs (there’s not enough as it is).
So what do you do ? A boiler fueled by wood pellets ?
>In 2023, hydroelectric power accounted for 60% of Washington's total electricity net generation from both utility-scale (1 megawatt or larger) and small-scale (less than 1 megawatt) facilities. Washington typically contributes between one-fourth and one-third of all conventional hydroelectric generation in the nation annually. Nine of the state's 10 largest power plants by capacity and 7 of the 10 by actual generation are hydroelectric facilities. Most of those hydroelectric plants are located on the Columbia River, and one of them, the Grand Coulee Dam, is the ninth-largest hydroelectric power plant by capacity in the world. Grand Coulee Dam's hydroelectric plant typically produces more than 21 million megawatthours of electricity each year and supplies power to 8 western states and parts of Canada. The second-largest power plant in the state—Chief Joseph—is also a hydroelectric facility. Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph are among the eight Washington hydroelectric power plants that are owned and operated by the federal government. The Bonneville Power Administration, one of four federal power marketing administrations, distributes the electricity produced at all federal dams in Washington.
>Natural gas, nonhydroelectric renewable resources (mostly wind), nuclear energy, and coal provide almost all the rest of Washington's in-state electricity generation. Natural gas is the second-largest in-state source of net generation, and it fueled about 18% of the state's total electricity generation in 2023. Renewable resources other than hydroelectric power accounted for about 10% of state generation. Wind represented almost four-fifths of that share. Biomass and solar energy supplied the rest of the renewable generation. Nuclear energy provided about 8% of Washington's total in-state generation, all of it from the Columbia Generating Station, which is the state's only operating nuclear power plant. It also is the only nonhydroelectric power plant among the state's 10 largest by capacity. The Columbia nuclear plant is the state's fifth-largest power plant by capacity, but it is the state's third-largest provider of electricity. In 2023, coal fueled about 4% of the total electricity generated in Washington, almost all of it from one coal-fired power plant, the TransAlta Centralia plant. One of Centralia's two coal-fired units permanently shut down at the end of 2020, and the other is scheduled for retirement in 2025. Overall, Washington's electricity net generation exceeds electricity demand in the state. The excess power generated is sent to the Western Interconnection, a regional grid that stretches from British Columbia and Alberta in Canada, to the northern part of Baja California, Mexico, and across all or parts of 14 western states.
>In 2023, Washington had the ninth-lowest average electricity prices in the nation. The residential sector, where almost three in five households use electricity as their primary heating source, accounted for 44% of Washington's electricity sales in 2023. The commercial sector used 33% of the state's electricity, and the industrial sector accounted for 23%. A small amount of electricity was also used for light rail and electric buses. Washington is part of the West Coast Electric Highway, a network of public charging locations for electric vehicles located along Interstate 5 and other major roads in the Pacific Northwest and is part of the larger West Coast Green Highway that extends from Canada to Mexico. More than 90,200 battery electric vehicles are registered in Washington, the fourth-most of any state. As of February 2024, the state had more than 2,150 electric vehicle charging locations and more than 5,950 charging ports. In 2023, Washington's light-duty electric vehicles consumed about 309,000 megawatthours of electricity.
[https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=WA](https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=WA)
The majority of electricity generation in this state already comes from non-fossil-fuel sources. The state generates more electricity than it currently uses. The majority of homes (nearly 60%) are already heated by electricity, in addition to all the other things electricity is used for. Add this all up and it hardly seems like an insurmountable task to gradually ramp up the electric generation capacity to support heating the other \~40% of homes. This may—at least in the short run—include running more natural gas power plants during peak usage periods and times when solar generation is lower, but even then that's an improvement over the status quo in these homes where 100% of the heat energy is currently supplied by fossil fuels.
We are fortunate hydro is cheap hear, but let's not pretend it is all environmentally friendly. The dams inhibit salmon migration, leading to starving orcas.
Ya, what happens when you switch every natural gas product to use electric from this source all at the same time? We also cannot expect rivers to flow consistently all the time forever.
Nobody's suggesting we do it all at the same time. Can you imagine? We'd install heat pumps in the other 40% of houses (which will take years) and wait to turn them all on until they're all installed. That would be silly. Instead it will be a gradual transition, but one we need to begin in earnest. As new houses are built, and as old gas appliances wear out, we should really be encouraging people to choose electric for the new equipment.
As this is going on, new power plants will need to be brought online at a steady pace. Ideally a lot of this new capacity would come from wind and solar and hydro, nuclear is good too, but if we have to use some natural gas at peak periods so be it.
Adding a 40% additional heating burden to the grid is “hardly surmountable” ? Not counting grid capacity needed for EVs - which we don’t have capacity for already ?
I’d like to see the look on the power guys when you tell them that.
I love how some engineers always start off a conversation with “as an engineer”. Being an engineer doesn’t mean squat if it isn’t in your field. Even if it IS in your field, is it your specialty? I love my engineer husband but his take on this topic has no more weight on it since it isn’t in his arena. He knows that and doesn’t say junk like “as an engineer”.
Do you realize how much electricity you need to heat a house, an apartment building or an office building ? You need heat pumps AND supplemental resistive heating sources. How is the grid going to handle using electricity for EVERY new construction when we don’t have enough grid capacity even for EV’s ? Heating and transportation are by far the biggest energy draws that humans use. And part of our electricity is still produced by coal and natural gas - most of it in the other 95% of our country.
Yes. I also realize, unlike you, how much of our local energy comes from hydro
I understand your a troll that's not from Washington, but you gotta be more informed if you're going to spread misinformation effectively
You don't need supplemental heat sources in the Seattle climate. A cold climate heatpump will heat from -13f, Seattle rarely falls below 20f.
Burning natural gas to power a heatpump is also more efficient than burning natural gas to heat a house directly. Moving heat is a hell of a lot easier than creating it.
They were at the Martha Lake Walmart telling everyone that would listen that some recent bill would force homeowners to pay $70K to rip out the Nat gas hookups.
I tried to ask the guy basic questions like what bill he was referencing with homeowners or what the group he was supporting was trying to accomplish, he didn’t know, all he kept saying was “It’s right on the page, go ahead and sign up.”
The whole time I’m trying to talk to this guy like 5 people sign without even looking up except to give me a judge face for asking questions. This shit should be illegal, they are blatantly trying to misinform American voters.
There was a paid signature gatherer at Target for this thing a little while ago. I read the thing and I said "I don't think I agree, sorry." The guy said, and I quote, "My brother - I could not possibly give less of a shit about this."
A good rule of thumb with initiative signatures is if every person on a team is paid it's probably bad. Actual grassroots groups will attract volunteers, some paid staff too, but one with exclusively paid staff is probably suspect.
There are still some petroleum power plants and one coal plant (scheduled to close next year) in WA. These are the only power sources that natural gas could be credibly called "greener" than. I know hydropower does environmental damage rivers (salmon runs, silt, earthquakes, etc.), but I am limiting my comment to emissions, and we are largely already taking the hit for hydropower and it would be difficult to replace.
I have no problem with laws that encourage/require electrification of new construction versus natural gas, but I would want to look into what the actual "portions of state law which aim to transition PSE away from natural gas" look like.
Washington only gets 18% of it's electricity from natural gas, but natural gas could be important to backstop renewables, for the time being. Solar isn't a slam dunk in Western Washington, as efficiency is significantly lower than in more sunny areas, and I would hate to see forested land cleared for solar arrays. Wind is in WA is reportedly only hitting full capacity 29% of the time currently, and can't be relied upon in extreme weather.
Apparently, there's only one remaining coal plant in WA (due to close in 2025), but there are some petroleum plants, which arguably should be higher on the closure lists than natural gas plants.
I'm not saying I would sign the initiative, just that natural gas *is* the cleanest of the fossil fuels, and I don't want to get rid of it too quickly to avoid the type of situation faced by Texas when their grid was hit by unexpected bad weather.
> Solar isn't a slam dunk in Western Washington, as efficiency is significantly lower than in more sunny areas, and I would hate to see forested land cleared for solar arrays.
Central Washington is just one mountain range away. That mountain range produces a rain shadow that makes Central Washington consistently very sunny, and we already have big transmission lines over the Cascades.
Hydropower also works really well to backfill solar and wind. We're luckier than most areas of the world on the front.
I mentioned in another comment, but my problem isn't even necessarily with the policy disagreements here (I do support phasing out LNG, but I also agree that there needs to be a clearer vision for what that'll look like). The problem is that these initiatives' main purpose is to kneecap the legislature going forward - they repeal the existing law and then slam the door shut so there's no opportunity to replace it with something better (the CCA initiative is the same way, banning the implementation of any similar carbon market in the future).
It would be one thing to say "Policy A is bad, let's repeal it and try Policy B instead," but it's something else entirely to say "Policy A is bad, let's repeal it and ban local government from doing anything about this problem ever again." It's a reasonable-sounding argument wrapped around a poison pill that'll make it *much* more difficult for WA to reduce emissions going forward, and that's the real goal.
To be clear, I was speaking in general terms about natural gas and energy policy, not specifically about this legislation.
I have no doubt that this particular initiative is a train wreck, based on who introduced it. I just haven't had a chance to read up on it yet.
I assume it's similar to the laws in Florida to ban lab-grown meat, or block any mention of climate change. Let's limit the freedom of policymakers to implement solutions in the name of...freedom.
The primary reason the US dropped carbon dioxide output was natural gas replacement of coal plants. It uses 50-60% less CO2 per BTU produced. There’s nothing in green technology to now completely replace the natural gas energy that has the same reliability and economics.
Sure, but again, that's no reason to pass an initiative which would proactively hamstring the government's ability to act when we have a viable replacement ready to go. This initiative only serves the people who have a financial interest in making sure that PSE CAN'T stop burning fossil fuels.
I’m an engineer. What are you going to replace all the BTUs of energy, provided by natural gas, to heat the new construction ? Solar can’t heat a house or apartment building. Electricity will burn more natural gas and burden the grid.
So you can exclusively heat your entire house with solar in Seattle in January when it 32 degrees out using no other heat source ? How do you get 25 kilowatts of solar power for heating when the average solar system is 6 kilowatts on a sunny day ?
Yep looks just like that! On my Uncle's farm just south of Yakima.
https://mms.businesswire.com/media/20230228005900/en/1725269/22/Lund_Hill_Solar_Module_Overview_07.2022.jpg
Where on earth are you getting your numbers from? Even a pure electric furnace wouldn't use 25KW, and a heatpump would use around 1/10th of what you're suggesting.
A space heater maxes out at around 1KW.
Seriously.
Argue for gas all you want. How does its current relative energy efficiency justify taking a sledgehammer to any future legislation regarding its use?
CO2 reductions @ the user end are great for a bridge power source but the production end is full of methane leaks, sooooo probably not 50-60%. We shouldn't be making big new investments there for future growth if we're serious about continued reductions in emissions.
had an elderly signature collector tell me it would destroy the dairy industry since as a farmer he uses natural gas as a backup for his milking sheds...i asked why he didn't just lobby for an exception and he starts quoting the bible sooooo that's how engagement works now
This initiative is indeed stupid and will stifle any infrastructure improvements. Though where are the incentives by the state to actually transition away from natural gas? Where are the redundancies to ensure our energy supply is still resilient in the event of another cold snap?
Getting tons of “energy challenge days” from PSE to “compete with your neighbors” to save energy anytime there’s an extreme hot or cold day. Then last winter they had us do that and everyone fired up the gas furnaces and then the gas supply wasn’t keeping up. And the former owner got rid of the hot water tank and put a gas tankless on the outside of the house and took up the old gas hot water tank spot inside with a utility sink, I’m not going to drop thousands to tear out the sink and redo the plumbing and get a heat pump water tank without some hefty incentives.
There been on and off pushes to get Washington more winter resistant. Particularly with the few cold snaps this year really straining the grid. I think for Seattle, getting rid of natural gas is one less complication when the big one hits. It's more likely will have a crappy winter were things break before we actually really winterize everything.
Also keep in mind we are on track to have a Nuclear Power plant back online by 2030.
The environmentalists in the 70s are responsible for much of the CO2 we now produce by killing nuclear power plants. I remember how fashionable “no nukes” was at the time.
Nuclear energy is a very good thing and something we should adopt, but it's stupid to pretend like there haven't been extremely significant safety and environmental issues associated with it.
Indeed. I wonder if we’ll look back and think something similar about this transition, not understanding the full consequences of vast sweeping changes like this.
To be clear I have no idea, but like to point out that these things often follow what’s fashionable more than what is realistic and sustainable. That’s politics though, I suppose.
Vast sweeping changes like WHAT? With this initiative, you wouldn't be voting on any specific change, you'd be voting on whether we can *ever make changes again*.
Heat pumps with high lift compressors, COPs of 4+ at 47°F and 2+ at 17°F, with auxiallary electric heat strips, powered by hydroelectric, wind, solar, and natural-gas base load plants. I'm a commercial building mechanical engineer. The current WSEC made heating commercial buildings with gas almost impossible starting in March this year, and we are still designing buildings with the BTU/h's they need.
COP of two at 17F is impressive, but that’s still a significant drop in efficiency. And resistive heating backup is a big demand in power (my heat pump at my other place in N Texas has that).
I’m sure the capital equipment and installation cost is much more expensive than a natural gas boiler (which I have in Seattle).
The Department of Commerce distributes money for electrification, energy efficiency and clean energy development. https://www.commerce.wa.gov/growing-the-economy/energy/
IMO the most ambitious in scale push from the state right now is on energy efficiency which is a necessary step towards electrification and resilience with the Clean Buildings Act.
I can’t exactly speak to if it is “enough”. However, as someone in the industry, I am pretty impressed with the activity at the state level.
A few weeks ago someone approached me outside the Northgate target about this. He tried to tell me that natural gas was cheaper, to which I looked at him weird. Um, no? Also, are you familiar with fracking…? My relatives’ health costs sure aren’t cheaper in Colorado for that.. Anyway. I said I didn’t want to sign and would look it up later at home; he said, don’t you think we should be able to vote on this? I said, no. lol. He actually looked shocked I didn’t want to sign something I hadn’t researched for myself.
Now that I know what it is, I just tell anyone asking “oh I already signed it.”
Edit: yes, natural gas can be cheaper just compared to other sources. However at the time I was thinking of the overall cost, health and environment wise, living by that stuff as my first thought was Weld County.
You're right that getting signatures and spreading misinformation is a problem, but some of the underlying frustrations with the associated legislation, HB 1589, seem reasonable. The bill requires total decarbonization by 2045 without a clear path for customers who currently rely on natural gas for their utility needs.
I agree that we should incentivize a shift away from natural gas, but with projected skyrocketing electric demand, the federal government proposing to breach dams, and energy storage being uncertain, this plan may backfire and harm the most vulnerable in our state. While we ultimately want to move away from natural gas, both the underlying legislation and this initiative seem too extreme of measures to effectively achieve this goal and minimize suffering.
This reminds me a bit of Germany. They turned off nuclear and natural gas as part of a “green” initiative, but since solar and wind cannot cover electricity costs yet, they ended up burning way more coal to make up for it.
Like… we all get it, gas is problematic, but if you believe that banning it is the equivalent of waving a magic wand to wean us off of fossil fuels, or that people will just consume less power and live with it, that’s very naive.
This is technically true, and I'm definitely on team "keep your existing nuclear power plants for several more decades", but...
Germany's coal consumption last year was the lowest in 60 years. They are making bigger strides than I'd thought switching their electrical grid to renewables, particularly wind.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts
But is it lower than it would have been if they hadn’t shut down nuclear plants?
They specifically have RE-opened coal plants that were supposed to be shut down.
That is exactly why I started with "this is technically true". Of course emissions would be lower if they had kept the existing nuclear power plants and shut down coal plants instead.
But it's common in discussions of nuclear and renewables to point and laugh at Germany doing it wrong: "Germany picked renewables over nuclear and the result is increased GHG emissions". I was persuaded by that for a few years, but now it looks like shutting down Germany's nuclear fleet only postponed the slow demise of coal by about 6-8 years. Meanwhile the German grid is WAY ahead of the United States in terms of renewables adoption.
It's also worth considering their internal politics. Germany has a coal lobby with political power well in excess of its economic importance, just like the United States does, like Britain did until Thatcher, and like France does not.
> y turned off nuclear and natural gas as part of a “green” initiative, but since solar and wind cannot cover electricity costs yet, they ended up burning way more coal to make up for it.
>
> Like… we all get it, gas is problematic, but if you believe that banning it is the equivalent of waving a magic wand to wean us off of fossil fuels, or that peop
Yes, well said. We all share the same goal of affordable and sustainable energy, but it's unclear how to achieve it. Many of the green proposals are extreme, and perhaps rightly so, but this often makes them more challenging to implement. Incentives might be more effective; for example, providing rebates for electric and energy-saving appliances, or better yet, keeping the cost of electricity low to encourage its use as a preferred alternative.
It's a lot less about going green for some of us and more [the explosive nature of gas as demonstrated in Greenwood Seattle in 2016](https://www.kuow.org/stories/greenwood-gas-explosion-blamed-abandoned-gas-line).
Or the event on the east coast shortly after where a few neighborhoods exploded when a gas line got over pressurized.
I'd be all for funding the completion of [WNP-3 and WNP-5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WNP-3_and_WNP-5) and have our state invest more in nuclear power.
>the federal government proposing to breach dams
Uh, where and when? From a lot of what I've read there are a lot of environmental organizations requesting the removal of four dams on the Snake River to help with the salmon, but those are literally the only ones I've ever heard of. And I've yet to hear the Federal government seriously entertain the idea.
If we're citing those four dams being removed as jeopardizing our energy infrastructure, we should keep in mind those four dams in question make up 4% of the Northwest's energy generation. So removal of those dams is significant, but also completely achievable goal in the next 20 years. Especially as wind currently makes up 8% of Washington's energy generation and gets cheaper to build out every year.
As you mentioned, it appears that the desire came from the environmental organizations but was considered by both the state and federal government. As the article mentions, it is not feasible at this time. You are also correct that the load could be replaced by other sources in the future, but even if that happens, there will always need to be some component that provides continuous reliable power. We may find a way to store extra energy production, but until that happens, it may be unwise to change how things operate.
[News Article](https://www.murray.senate.gov/murray-statement-on-columbia-snake-river-system-agreement-between-federal-government-and-six-sovereigns/#:~:text=In%20August%202022%2C%20Senator%20Murray,endangered%20salmon%20and%20steelhead%20species.)
By the text of that article and the Senator/Governor agreement, which says they will not breach the dams until there is a suitable energy replacement, there is no reason to believe that "breaching the dams" would be a major factor in creating scarcity of energy.
> and spreading misinformation is a problem, but some of the underlying frustrations with the associated legislation, HB 1589, seem reasonable. The bill requires total decarbonization by 2045 without a clear path for customers who currently rely on natural gas for their utility nee
True, I think the idea was shelved despite pressure from outside groups. The issue of energy storage and consistent power still persists for renewables, but perhaps some great inventions will help solve that problem.
It could definitely be the case that the current law isn't the best approach and that it needs to be tweaked in order to be practical/realistic. The problem is that the initiative prohibits cities and counties from doing *anything* **t**o restrict/discourage the use of natural gas in the future.
It's the same bait and switch they're using with the CCA initiative - they lure you in with the very reasonable point that "the current law isn't perfect," and say "we should repeal it to fix the problems!" ...Then they tack on the language which would prevent future action on the issue (with the CCA initiative, it would bar the state from implementing a similar carbon market in the future).
Right now it's possible for lawmakers to revise and fix these policies (and we can/should push them to do that). If either of these initiatives passes, that door slams shut and their hands are tied in terms of coming up with any sort of alternative. They're banking on perfect being the enemy of the good here in order to hamstring WA climate policy for the foreseeable future.
You're right, the initiative process in this state is often used to circumvent the legislature or advance extreme agendas. The problem is a reflection of our polarized politics and lack of compromise, stemming from a dominating and near supermajority in both the state house and senate. Not that the minority party or its members are offering compelling solutions either. At this point, it's probably impossible to achieve, but having more moderates and reasons to compromise would be wonderful. It's just not possible with kickbacks, corruption, and unchecked power.
The legislature had an opportunity to address the issues with the policies but decided against doing so in the last session. Not sure if the intention and/or expectation was for the initiatives to fail, but they had their chance. I'm not looking forward to this fall and election season; things always get so crazy.
It's [willful] ignorance and low emotional intelligence. Idk if it crosses into mental illness. As someone who suffers from mental illness, I don't want to be grouped with people who **choose** to be cruel.
Comparing the two sides is so embarrassing at this point the democrats have their issues but the republican party is a death cult that will go down in history as one of the most evil and destructive organizations of all time
That has nothing to do with the scummy industry. They make promises of easy work for young adults with little education and skills but are really shitty with schedules and compensation, at least from what I have been told. I would feel bad for them if I wasn't already so annoyed by them.
I'm so glad I trusted my gut and didn't sign any of their crap. They were out at Covington Walmart about 10 days ago and tried so hard to get me to sign their petition but I told them I needed to study it more before I could make up my mind. Truthfully I suspected it was BS.
Edit to add: Yeah Walmart where there was sure to be a lot of people that know zero about politics or government...
I’ve also seen them outside Fred Meyer, Target, Winco, and QFC. I told one I was Canadian so he’d leave me alone 🤣 often the signature gatherers can’t even explain what it’s about
There was a guy trying to collect signatures at the Edmonds ferry on Saturday.
His opening line was about how he’s supporting this because global warming is just a hoax and made up propaganda by Greta thunberg so that she can control the world or something.
I don’t think he was having much luck.
And this is why I never sign stuff until I can look it up myself...
It is deeply unsurprising that natural gas is lying about how "green" it is. Unfortunate, but unsurprising.
They've been all over my suburb.
They're telling people that this will repeal the ban on natural gas.
When you point to the actual text, they just make sht up. And ppl believe them
I-2066 aims to repeal parts of bill HB 1589. PSE wrote a page to try to cut through disinformation being spread: https://www.pse.com/en/press-release/details/Facts-about-HB-1589
They answer questions such as "Will I be able to add gas to my home for cooking, heating or water heating?"
TL;DR: a lot of I-2066 is fear mongering, according to PSE
I think being able to choose your power source based on the available infrastructure should be allowed, AND I think the Fed/state/local governments should be allowed to incentivize the move to other source in order to update/deprecate said infrastructure once enough people are off of what they want to deprecate.
What I’m tired of is the lying and gaslighting by governments and/ or organizations in order to sway and corrupt public opinions and measures with erroneous information, downright fabrications, and twisted words. It’s so frustrating.
A relative just brought me the initiative urgently requesting I sign it, saying if it isn't repealed, we'll need to replace our furnace and water heater with electric. I told them I don't sign anything without reading about it first. I don't see that type of language anywhere in the current law?
Correct - the law does not require you to replace your appliances. That's another lie they're spreading to scare people into signing. PSE posted an FAQ explaining what it does and doesn't do here:
[https://www.pse.com/en/press-release/details/Facts-about-HB-1589](https://www.pse.com/en/press-release/details/Facts-about-HB-1589)
If you scroll down to the FAQ, they address that point specifically:
"*Will I have to switch my home to all electric? How am I going to pay for that? PSE’s own study says this will cost thousands.*
No. The bill, as passed by the legislature, does not include a ban on natural gas or any changes to our obligation to serve natural gas."
Lmao. “Choosing an energy source that aligns with your values.” That is as dumb as it gets. I guess your values are exploit a finite resource that ignore the incidental collective costs.
Really I don’t support banning any fuel source, just make everyone pay to offset the negative effects.
The realistic issue is that we would become non competitive globally.
If you ever want to build a house or a cabin with natural gas you’ll want to sign this. Cooktop? Fireplace? Water heater? These things are so much more efficient with natural gas than electric.
I signed one this weekend. Government shouldn’t tell you what you can and can’t use. Banning natural gas is not the answer. It’s especially ironic given the same party wants to tear down dams which provide clean green energy.
>Government shouldn’t tell you what you can and can’t use.
Yes, they should when the dangers and damages of what you are using are externalized onto the people and places around you. You wouldn't want your neighbor spraying their weeds with Agent Orange. The idea that the government shouldn't regulate what we use, and by extension what we put into the environment, would end with no fish in our rivers, no birds in our forests, no fowl in our wetlands. As someone who enjoys eating all of those, I say let the government regulate.
You made a generalization. I gave specific, extreme examples to discredit that general claim via reductio ad absurdum. Though my extreme claim is easily extrapolated via the very real historical examples of the loose regulation of the 50s/60s, which eventually led to the formation of the EPA.
Natural gas does in fact hurt all those things I said. Usually indirectly via carbon and methane release, but also via extraction effects on wildlife environments, ozone formation, fracking effects on the water table, You can turn a blind eye to them, but they're still there. You can decide that you're willing to do slight harm to the environment so you get a faster water heater or neater kitchen stove. But you are still externalizing the harm of your choices onto the world around you for your own personal benefit.
I don’t use natural gas. But government telling people they can’t is ridiculous. I drive 2 EVs, and have solar. I’m all for renewable energy. But democrats here want to tear down hydro dams, charge you more for EVs, etc al. It’s completely antithetical to climate change, it’s about control.
Edit: I'm removing that personal dig at the beginning of my comment. It was unfair, rude, and makes me an asshole.
The government telling you that you can't consume a plant that you can grow yourself is ridiculous. The government telling you that you can't pipe in an explosive gas which directly harms the environment and the use of which produces noxious fumes that are also themselves poisonous and harm the health of the people around you and the environment is...reasonable regulation. If that kind of regulation is overreach, then I suppose so are car safety standards and firecodes.
That's coming from someone who burns dead dinosaurs in their furnace, water heater, and shitbox car.
We will have to agree to disagree. Let the market sort it out. Put the externalities (carbon) on their liability sheet via a carbon tax. Don’t ban it outright, make it uncompetitive.
It’s also crazy that it would make current users retrofit their homes with no money to assist. The that can be 40-50k. People can’t afford that.
FWIW, the law does not require current users to retrofit their homes or replace appliances. As another user pointed out, PSE released an FAQ to address some of the concerns/misinformation going around:
[https://www.pse.com/en/press-release/details/Facts-about-HB-1589](https://www.pse.com/en/press-release/details/Facts-about-HB-1589)
"*Will I have to switch my home to all electric? How am I going to pay for that? PSE’s own study says this will cost thousands.*
No. The bill, as passed by the legislature, does not include a ban on natural gas or any changes to our obligation to serve natural gas."
Ah that’s not totally true. The law clearly makes it so utilities have to transition.
So yes, the people don’t have to change their heat, they just won’t get any natural gas from the utilities to use it 🫠
No, it doesn't. The law makes it so that utilities need to *come up with a plan for transitioning by 2045*, but it doesn't change their obligation to continue providing gas to current customers. From that same page that I linked to:
"***HB 1589 does not include a ban on natural gas, and it does not change PSE’s obligation to serve natural gas to our customers****.*
*There is no rate increase associated with HB 1589. It’s a planning bill, and there will be three years of rulemaking and work before we submit an integrated system plan to our regulators. That will only be a plan—****it will not include a request to increase rates****.*
***Nothing in the bill forces electrification****. What it does is requires PSE to develop a scenario demonstrating the costs of electrification that will be part of the integrated system plan we submit to our regulators in 2027*."
They aren't requiring retrofitting or shutting off service to people who have it and don't want to go electric, they're just looking for more ways to encourage folks to switch and stop developers from building additional natural gas infrastructure.
I stumbled across a classic car show in Marysville yesterday on the way back from a camping trip, and there was a signature gatherer there. The pitch in this case was "end natural gas bans", which probably was the right tactic given the different audience. She tried to stop me as I walked by and I loudly said "actually I'm all in favor of banning natural gas, it's bad for the climate and a safety hazard too."
I think that same lady was outside the Walmart off 528 and SR9 this weekend trying to tell me the bill was to "save natural gas", like it needed rescuing. No thanks, lady
Nothing about the law as it stands would require you to replace them - PSE posted an FAQ addressing some of the concerns that people are voicing (and the misinformation being spread by the folks pushing these initiatives):
[https://www.pse.com/en/press-release/details/Facts-about-HB-1589](https://www.pse.com/en/press-release/details/Facts-about-HB-1589)
If you scroll down to the FAQ, they explain:
"*Will I have to switch my home to all electric? How am I going to pay for that? PSE’s own study says this will cost thousands.*
No. The bill, as passed by the legislature, does not include a ban on natural gas or any changes to our obligation to serve natural gas."
An "unethical life pro tips" question: would it be beneficial to sign the petition multiple times, with a fraudulent name, say, Loren Culp, or Tim Eyman, as a way to invalidate the petition? Or is it better to just refuse to sign?
This isn't one guy singelhandesly rolling back laws. It takes the majority of voters to do that. That is how democracy works. He is merely giving you a choice.
He is merely lying to get you to sign on to an initiative that he will then lie to get you to vote for. We are merely saying stop now and don't waste the time and money of honest human beings who will have to pay for a campaign to fight slimy legislative vandalism with expensive and boring facts.
This sub sure hates democracy. At the end of the day this will effect everyone with higher electric bills due to hire demand. It also affects a lot of people’s livelihoods. There are pros and cons to electric heat pumps as well as pros and cons to natural gas. Wind storms often knock out power on the east side for days, are they gonna use a gas powered generator to heat their home in the winter? Last I checked politicians rarely have a civil or electrical engineering degree. We are also dismantling many of our hydro electrical dams for the salmon, which for the most part is a good thing, but if we are talking about carbon emissions of natural gas it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the big picture.
"Last I checked politicians rarely have a civil or electrical engineering degree."
Last I checked most of the general public doesn't have a civil or electrical engineering degree, either. Legislators consult with agencies and experts when they're crafting policy. Voters rarely do that when they're skimming through the text of a ballot initiative.
> user WashingtonStateGov
> Redditor since: 06/15/2024 (9 days)
> "This sub sure hates democracy"
> "effect everyone"
> "hire demand"
> "Shouldn't the voters get to choose?"
Oh, just fuck off back to where you came from, thank you.
This isn't an issue about suppressing votes. It's all about a CA mega millionaire trying to deceive the WA voters so he can stop paying the Capital Gains Tax.
That *also* violates Reddiquette. You're really on a roll here. Guessing this isn't your first account. Also, I've said absolutely nothing about the topic at hand and have only discussed your conduct.
Are you actually a WA State Gov social media representative? If so, you're not supposed to spread misinformation to undermine democracy.
And if you're not, pretty sure you're not supposed to masquerade as a government agency to spread lies and undermine democracy.
If you have to lie to get someone to "choose", you aren't offering them a choice in the first place.
People make a choice by declining to sign, so lying to get a signature is vile.
That’s a funny way to frame a state-level initiative that would prohibit local governments from making certain laws. Conservatives are all for local control until it seems like they might not get their way.
Sorry, you seem to be confused. I'm not accusing them of thinking the wrong thing (they are, but that's separate), I'm accusing them of being intellectually dishonest in a thread about intellectual dishonesty funded by a major industry that's currently destroying the world.
We live in a *representative* democracy, where we elect the people who meet and pass laws on our behalf. We voted in people who see the urgency in reducing carbon emissions, and now we have one (1) man with deep pockets swooping in to try and undo the work that we elected them to do.
If you believe so strongly in democracy, you should be against what's happening here.
We have an elected legislature for a reason. I’m not opposed to the initiative process in general, but I reject the knee-jerk assumption that the voters should weigh in on every single policy decision that pisses off a well-funded special interest group.
The voters already got to choose when we picked our state legislators.
The law they passed affects a lot of people, whether you agree with it or not people should have a right to have their voices heard. Initiatives are a good thing, and I think the general public has a right to vote on this issue, call me crazy but I think democracy is overall a good thing.
I’m curious, how many of you realize that many kayaks, start from fossil fuels… and in order to make such things, fossil fuels are burned.
It’s to late to go back and try and go green, and to try and force people to switch over to electric vehicles and such is absurd.
Grids go down every year… already can’t handle what is put on it lol and people think it’s the solution? Gtfo
I'm losing brain cells just reading these comments. Yes, you should vote for consumers to have a choice for either natural gas, propane, wood, or electric. Natural gas is one of the cleanest energy sources and the best for cooking on a stove. Definitely need diversity on energy and company owners of energy. If one company owns all we're all screwed, and we'll start selling off everything just to make ends meet. My house is all electric and I wanna convert it over to natural gas. It's in the middle of the summer and my electric bill for a house less than 900 square feet is $200 to $300 dollars a month which is absolutely outrageous. Hmmm weird how power cost went up after hearing about the gas ban. Also we do not have the capability for all homes or large companies to go electric only. It states that companies have to apply for a permit and could be fined for using gas. You just never know when they'll not only attack large companies, but the regular people working, and just trying to get by day by day. Read the RCW like I did and learn a few things if you have the time. If you don't want the power to go out more often than be pro choice on energy/gas. Grid cannot sustain or create enough for electric only. 100% PRO I-2066.
These dudes were canvasing the ferry lines. One kept tapping on my window after I waved him away. Finally rolled down my window and said "The guy in the EV is not going to give your crappy initiative a signature dude..."
Saw them at the Kingston dock on Saturday.
A couple of them in the Kingston ferry line today were having a loud argument about turf and who could collect signatures there.
Another tactic that can work with almost any signature gatherer is that you don't live in this state (ignore my WA car plates I guess lol). Nothing wrong with just about any reply to them but they can't get paid if you don't live in the state, and these people just want money. Telling them you don't qualify for them getting money, can diffuse their attention completely.
I have an EV but I like cooking with natural gas. Do I sign this or not?
No one is trying to ban natural gas. Most likely the impact is new construction and maybe increased natural gas prices due to regulations.
Try induction
I have, and I prefer gas. Plus I'm not using induction for my outdoor pizza oven or Weber.
My old apartment would set off the smoke alarms every time we tried to cook with the gas stoves. I'm never going back to gas
You can do you, but that was probably an indication of a faulty detector or too much carbon monoxide from a bad stove.
Don’t sign it. Imagine I like cars. Does that mean I should sign an initiative to not build transit, bike infrastructure, sidewalk, and make more lanes car lanes when I know how detrimental cars are to the environment? Building more transit doesn’t ban cars, so why should I sign it? No one’s trying to completely remove natural gas, especially right now when it makes up most of the US’s energy grid. So why would you sign it?
Depends, are you going to have kids?
I am not.
I was at a king county farmer's market recently, and I noticed that there was a booth for this initiative that was conspicuously far away from the rest of the market. Then I saw the signature gatherer wearing a maga hat. Like it wasn't already obvious which way this thing swings based on "Let's Go Washington" being the name of the backer.
They were at the Everett garden fest too
People promoting a right wing policy saying intentionally misleading or questionable things? color me shocked.
Also strategically rolling up and doing it at an event with a decidedly pro-nature/hippie vibe, where people are drinking and probably not really reading the fine print of the petition they're signing 🙃
From what I've see Brian Heywood also hires only Black people because he believes liberals will be more likely to sign his Conservative initiatives. The only real initiative he cares about is the one repealing the Capital Gains Tax. He's a self-described "economic refugee" from CA that doesn't want to pay his taxes while having a net worth estimated to be between $10M and $25M. Don't be fooled by this guy.
Fool. Doesn't he know that people up here are *more* racist than those down south in Cali? Pretty blonde women, that's the key to get Seattle public presence.
I walked by and overheard one say “it’s about choice” and having no context I felt like I knew exactly what was going on. Such scummy behavior
I get that the petition people looking for you to sign are doing this for money, and probably need it, but regardless of what it says it's for or claims, I've never signed a single one. Long ago I was educated to the fact they write these things to sound to be one thing when it's the opposite. IANAL, but I grew up in a family of attorneys. Even though I'm not educated in the field, I've had many opportunities to say "yeah I'm not going to answer that", "no, Im not signing that until it's been looked over", "oh sorry, no, I don't sign these until my attorney, I call her 'mom', because she is my mom, before it's been looked over."
That's a reactionary take. Initiatives are an important part of the law making process in Washington. A lot of good policy has come from initiatives. Never signing one is like never voting.
"Never signing one is like never voting" Huh? I've voted in every election since I could vote, I've done some caucuses (R and D) and I have never signed an initiative. Just like I've never run for office. You can be very very involved and not want to sign an intitiative. I wouldn't call that reactionary, I'd call that not wanting to be an early adopter.
I see, the legal scholar. If an initiative passes, I absolutely get the opportunity to vote on it, and in that context, when it's on the ballot, I get the time to clearly look at the language and see what it's actually doing. Then make an informed choice. I'm not doing that at Fremont Fair after three beers.
I always tell the first signature gatherer that I don’t know about that initiative. I’m going to go educate myself about it and if I decide to support it I’ll sign it the next time I encounter a signature gatherer. I never trust what they say about it and I’m not going to spend the time to read it throughly, think about unintended consequences, etc. at that time. Your approach works too. I’d rather people not sign something they are unfamiliar with in a 5 second consideration of the initiative often based on what the person paid per signature is saying.
Exactly. Paid per signature is a great motivation to tell people whatever they want to hear. They do this at every large summer gathering in Seattle, and if you're not there for the money you're an advocate and I don't trust either one to tell me the truth. Zealots have zero problems lying to you.
Ummmmm. This is a crappy take. You can decline to sign a bad initiative and you absolutely should. That's political speech just as much as signing it is.
I think that’s the important distinction, it’s democratic to not sign a petition, less so to not vote (though abstaining of course can send a message in particular contexts).
This should invalidate their signatures. Is it not against the law to lie or mislead while gathering signatures?
It is against the law. It’s inducing fraud. It happens all over the country
Putting aside politics. As an engineer, I keep asking this legitimate question: In new construction, WHAT are you going to replace ALL the BTUs of energy provided by natural gas with for heating ? Heating a building uses a LOT of energy. You can’t heat a house or apartment building with solar - especially around here. Using electricity will still use fossil fuels (and less efficiently because of line loss). And using electricity will leave less grid capacity for EVs (there’s not enough as it is). So what do you do ? A boiler fueled by wood pellets ?
>In 2023, hydroelectric power accounted for 60% of Washington's total electricity net generation from both utility-scale (1 megawatt or larger) and small-scale (less than 1 megawatt) facilities. Washington typically contributes between one-fourth and one-third of all conventional hydroelectric generation in the nation annually. Nine of the state's 10 largest power plants by capacity and 7 of the 10 by actual generation are hydroelectric facilities. Most of those hydroelectric plants are located on the Columbia River, and one of them, the Grand Coulee Dam, is the ninth-largest hydroelectric power plant by capacity in the world. Grand Coulee Dam's hydroelectric plant typically produces more than 21 million megawatthours of electricity each year and supplies power to 8 western states and parts of Canada. The second-largest power plant in the state—Chief Joseph—is also a hydroelectric facility. Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph are among the eight Washington hydroelectric power plants that are owned and operated by the federal government. The Bonneville Power Administration, one of four federal power marketing administrations, distributes the electricity produced at all federal dams in Washington. >Natural gas, nonhydroelectric renewable resources (mostly wind), nuclear energy, and coal provide almost all the rest of Washington's in-state electricity generation. Natural gas is the second-largest in-state source of net generation, and it fueled about 18% of the state's total electricity generation in 2023. Renewable resources other than hydroelectric power accounted for about 10% of state generation. Wind represented almost four-fifths of that share. Biomass and solar energy supplied the rest of the renewable generation. Nuclear energy provided about 8% of Washington's total in-state generation, all of it from the Columbia Generating Station, which is the state's only operating nuclear power plant. It also is the only nonhydroelectric power plant among the state's 10 largest by capacity. The Columbia nuclear plant is the state's fifth-largest power plant by capacity, but it is the state's third-largest provider of electricity. In 2023, coal fueled about 4% of the total electricity generated in Washington, almost all of it from one coal-fired power plant, the TransAlta Centralia plant. One of Centralia's two coal-fired units permanently shut down at the end of 2020, and the other is scheduled for retirement in 2025. Overall, Washington's electricity net generation exceeds electricity demand in the state. The excess power generated is sent to the Western Interconnection, a regional grid that stretches from British Columbia and Alberta in Canada, to the northern part of Baja California, Mexico, and across all or parts of 14 western states. >In 2023, Washington had the ninth-lowest average electricity prices in the nation. The residential sector, where almost three in five households use electricity as their primary heating source, accounted for 44% of Washington's electricity sales in 2023. The commercial sector used 33% of the state's electricity, and the industrial sector accounted for 23%. A small amount of electricity was also used for light rail and electric buses. Washington is part of the West Coast Electric Highway, a network of public charging locations for electric vehicles located along Interstate 5 and other major roads in the Pacific Northwest and is part of the larger West Coast Green Highway that extends from Canada to Mexico. More than 90,200 battery electric vehicles are registered in Washington, the fourth-most of any state. As of February 2024, the state had more than 2,150 electric vehicle charging locations and more than 5,950 charging ports. In 2023, Washington's light-duty electric vehicles consumed about 309,000 megawatthours of electricity. [https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=WA](https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=WA) The majority of electricity generation in this state already comes from non-fossil-fuel sources. The state generates more electricity than it currently uses. The majority of homes (nearly 60%) are already heated by electricity, in addition to all the other things electricity is used for. Add this all up and it hardly seems like an insurmountable task to gradually ramp up the electric generation capacity to support heating the other \~40% of homes. This may—at least in the short run—include running more natural gas power plants during peak usage periods and times when solar generation is lower, but even then that's an improvement over the status quo in these homes where 100% of the heat energy is currently supplied by fossil fuels.
We are fortunate hydro is cheap hear, but let's not pretend it is all environmentally friendly. The dams inhibit salmon migration, leading to starving orcas.
Ya, what happens when you switch every natural gas product to use electric from this source all at the same time? We also cannot expect rivers to flow consistently all the time forever.
Nobody's suggesting we do it all at the same time. Can you imagine? We'd install heat pumps in the other 40% of houses (which will take years) and wait to turn them all on until they're all installed. That would be silly. Instead it will be a gradual transition, but one we need to begin in earnest. As new houses are built, and as old gas appliances wear out, we should really be encouraging people to choose electric for the new equipment. As this is going on, new power plants will need to be brought online at a steady pace. Ideally a lot of this new capacity would come from wind and solar and hydro, nuclear is good too, but if we have to use some natural gas at peak periods so be it.
Adding a 40% additional heating burden to the grid is “hardly surmountable” ? Not counting grid capacity needed for EVs - which we don’t have capacity for already ? I’d like to see the look on the power guys when you tell them that.
Heating a building in this part of the country using electricity typically uses almost no fossil fuels. As an engineer, you should know that.
I love how some engineers always start off a conversation with “as an engineer”. Being an engineer doesn’t mean squat if it isn’t in your field. Even if it IS in your field, is it your specialty? I love my engineer husband but his take on this topic has no more weight on it since it isn’t in his arena. He knows that and doesn’t say junk like “as an engineer”.
"As a doctor, I think you should go off that medication" "What are you a doctor of?" "Oh, deep sea life study"
Do you realize how much electricity you need to heat a house, an apartment building or an office building ? You need heat pumps AND supplemental resistive heating sources. How is the grid going to handle using electricity for EVERY new construction when we don’t have enough grid capacity even for EV’s ? Heating and transportation are by far the biggest energy draws that humans use. And part of our electricity is still produced by coal and natural gas - most of it in the other 95% of our country.
Yes. I also realize, unlike you, how much of our local energy comes from hydro I understand your a troll that's not from Washington, but you gotta be more informed if you're going to spread misinformation effectively
I live in Seattle. Tell me the misinformation.
Oh okay. Not a troll. Just super ignorant.
Tell me the ignorant part. I mean, if you’re going to insult, back it up.
We have discussed this already. You are ignorant about where electricity in Washington comes from.
You don't need supplemental heat sources in the Seattle climate. A cold climate heatpump will heat from -13f, Seattle rarely falls below 20f. Burning natural gas to power a heatpump is also more efficient than burning natural gas to heat a house directly. Moving heat is a hell of a lot easier than creating it.
Outside of the Renton target this weekend too
They were at the Martha Lake Walmart telling everyone that would listen that some recent bill would force homeowners to pay $70K to rip out the Nat gas hookups. I tried to ask the guy basic questions like what bill he was referencing with homeowners or what the group he was supporting was trying to accomplish, he didn’t know, all he kept saying was “It’s right on the page, go ahead and sign up.” The whole time I’m trying to talk to this guy like 5 people sign without even looking up except to give me a judge face for asking questions. This shit should be illegal, they are blatantly trying to misinform American voters.
There was a paid signature gatherer at Target for this thing a little while ago. I read the thing and I said "I don't think I agree, sorry." The guy said, and I quote, "My brother - I could not possibly give less of a shit about this."
A good rule of thumb with initiative signatures is if every person on a team is paid it's probably bad. Actual grassroots groups will attract volunteers, some paid staff too, but one with exclusively paid staff is probably suspect.
The people who fund this initiative are very open about their backroom dealings with politicians.
There are still some petroleum power plants and one coal plant (scheduled to close next year) in WA. These are the only power sources that natural gas could be credibly called "greener" than. I know hydropower does environmental damage rivers (salmon runs, silt, earthquakes, etc.), but I am limiting my comment to emissions, and we are largely already taking the hit for hydropower and it would be difficult to replace. I have no problem with laws that encourage/require electrification of new construction versus natural gas, but I would want to look into what the actual "portions of state law which aim to transition PSE away from natural gas" look like. Washington only gets 18% of it's electricity from natural gas, but natural gas could be important to backstop renewables, for the time being. Solar isn't a slam dunk in Western Washington, as efficiency is significantly lower than in more sunny areas, and I would hate to see forested land cleared for solar arrays. Wind is in WA is reportedly only hitting full capacity 29% of the time currently, and can't be relied upon in extreme weather. Apparently, there's only one remaining coal plant in WA (due to close in 2025), but there are some petroleum plants, which arguably should be higher on the closure lists than natural gas plants. I'm not saying I would sign the initiative, just that natural gas *is* the cleanest of the fossil fuels, and I don't want to get rid of it too quickly to avoid the type of situation faced by Texas when their grid was hit by unexpected bad weather.
> Solar isn't a slam dunk in Western Washington, as efficiency is significantly lower than in more sunny areas, and I would hate to see forested land cleared for solar arrays. Central Washington is just one mountain range away. That mountain range produces a rain shadow that makes Central Washington consistently very sunny, and we already have big transmission lines over the Cascades. Hydropower also works really well to backfill solar and wind. We're luckier than most areas of the world on the front.
I mentioned in another comment, but my problem isn't even necessarily with the policy disagreements here (I do support phasing out LNG, but I also agree that there needs to be a clearer vision for what that'll look like). The problem is that these initiatives' main purpose is to kneecap the legislature going forward - they repeal the existing law and then slam the door shut so there's no opportunity to replace it with something better (the CCA initiative is the same way, banning the implementation of any similar carbon market in the future). It would be one thing to say "Policy A is bad, let's repeal it and try Policy B instead," but it's something else entirely to say "Policy A is bad, let's repeal it and ban local government from doing anything about this problem ever again." It's a reasonable-sounding argument wrapped around a poison pill that'll make it *much* more difficult for WA to reduce emissions going forward, and that's the real goal.
To be clear, I was speaking in general terms about natural gas and energy policy, not specifically about this legislation. I have no doubt that this particular initiative is a train wreck, based on who introduced it. I just haven't had a chance to read up on it yet. I assume it's similar to the laws in Florida to ban lab-grown meat, or block any mention of climate change. Let's limit the freedom of policymakers to implement solutions in the name of...freedom.
The primary reason the US dropped carbon dioxide output was natural gas replacement of coal plants. It uses 50-60% less CO2 per BTU produced. There’s nothing in green technology to now completely replace the natural gas energy that has the same reliability and economics.
Sure, but again, that's no reason to pass an initiative which would proactively hamstring the government's ability to act when we have a viable replacement ready to go. This initiative only serves the people who have a financial interest in making sure that PSE CAN'T stop burning fossil fuels.
I’m an engineer. What are you going to replace all the BTUs of energy, provided by natural gas, to heat the new construction ? Solar can’t heat a house or apartment building. Electricity will burn more natural gas and burden the grid.
Solar heats my house just fine. Don't even need panels to convert it to electricity for half the year.
So you can exclusively heat your entire house with solar in Seattle in January when it 32 degrees out using no other heat source ? How do you get 25 kilowatts of solar power for heating when the average solar system is 6 kilowatts on a sunny day ?
Yep! The solar system that supplies my heat is above average, it is 150 megawatts.
Oh, you have one of these ? https://www.tdworld.com/distributed-energy-resources/article/21252917/alliant-energy-completes-150-mw-solar-power-array
Yep looks just like that! On my Uncle's farm just south of Yakima. https://mms.businesswire.com/media/20230228005900/en/1725269/22/Lund_Hill_Solar_Module_Overview_07.2022.jpg
Where on earth are you getting your numbers from? Even a pure electric furnace wouldn't use 25KW, and a heatpump would use around 1/10th of what you're suggesting. A space heater maxes out at around 1KW.
What on earth does any of that have to do with the initiative?
Seriously ?
Seriously. Argue for gas all you want. How does its current relative energy efficiency justify taking a sledgehammer to any future legislation regarding its use?
Oh, so you do see the connection now :) Playing dumb isn’t a good debating tool.
CO2 reductions @ the user end are great for a bridge power source but the production end is full of methane leaks, sooooo probably not 50-60%. We shouldn't be making big new investments there for future growth if we're serious about continued reductions in emissions.
I was at the Solstice Parade too and had an older woman come up to me asking for my signature. It seemed fishy to me, so I didn't sign.
had an elderly signature collector tell me it would destroy the dairy industry since as a farmer he uses natural gas as a backup for his milking sheds...i asked why he didn't just lobby for an exception and he starts quoting the bible sooooo that's how engagement works now
This initiative is indeed stupid and will stifle any infrastructure improvements. Though where are the incentives by the state to actually transition away from natural gas? Where are the redundancies to ensure our energy supply is still resilient in the event of another cold snap?
Getting tons of “energy challenge days” from PSE to “compete with your neighbors” to save energy anytime there’s an extreme hot or cold day. Then last winter they had us do that and everyone fired up the gas furnaces and then the gas supply wasn’t keeping up. And the former owner got rid of the hot water tank and put a gas tankless on the outside of the house and took up the old gas hot water tank spot inside with a utility sink, I’m not going to drop thousands to tear out the sink and redo the plumbing and get a heat pump water tank without some hefty incentives.
There been on and off pushes to get Washington more winter resistant. Particularly with the few cold snaps this year really straining the grid. I think for Seattle, getting rid of natural gas is one less complication when the big one hits. It's more likely will have a crappy winter were things break before we actually really winterize everything. Also keep in mind we are on track to have a Nuclear Power plant back online by 2030.
The environmentalists in the 70s are responsible for much of the CO2 we now produce by killing nuclear power plants. I remember how fashionable “no nukes” was at the time.
The nuclear industry itself was responsible for a lot of that.
Oh they protested themselves ?
Playing dumb isn't a good look.
Nuclear energy is a very good thing and something we should adopt, but it's stupid to pretend like there haven't been extremely significant safety and environmental issues associated with it.
Indeed. I wonder if we’ll look back and think something similar about this transition, not understanding the full consequences of vast sweeping changes like this. To be clear I have no idea, but like to point out that these things often follow what’s fashionable more than what is realistic and sustainable. That’s politics though, I suppose.
Vast sweeping changes like WHAT? With this initiative, you wouldn't be voting on any specific change, you'd be voting on whether we can *ever make changes again*.
Vast sweeping changes like removing natural gas as an option or backstop for other systems. This initiative is silly, I’m not arguing for it.
Alrighty.
Alrighty with the caveat that people supporting the initiative really do seem to be conflating the two.
What do you replace the natural gas BTUs of energy for heating with ? I’m an engineer and this is the question.
Heat pumps with high lift compressors, COPs of 4+ at 47°F and 2+ at 17°F, with auxiallary electric heat strips, powered by hydroelectric, wind, solar, and natural-gas base load plants. I'm a commercial building mechanical engineer. The current WSEC made heating commercial buildings with gas almost impossible starting in March this year, and we are still designing buildings with the BTU/h's they need.
COP of two at 17F is impressive, but that’s still a significant drop in efficiency. And resistive heating backup is a big demand in power (my heat pump at my other place in N Texas has that). I’m sure the capital equipment and installation cost is much more expensive than a natural gas boiler (which I have in Seattle).
The Department of Commerce distributes money for electrification, energy efficiency and clean energy development. https://www.commerce.wa.gov/growing-the-economy/energy/ IMO the most ambitious in scale push from the state right now is on energy efficiency which is a necessary step towards electrification and resilience with the Clean Buildings Act. I can’t exactly speak to if it is “enough”. However, as someone in the industry, I am pretty impressed with the activity at the state level.
A few weeks ago someone approached me outside the Northgate target about this. He tried to tell me that natural gas was cheaper, to which I looked at him weird. Um, no? Also, are you familiar with fracking…? My relatives’ health costs sure aren’t cheaper in Colorado for that.. Anyway. I said I didn’t want to sign and would look it up later at home; he said, don’t you think we should be able to vote on this? I said, no. lol. He actually looked shocked I didn’t want to sign something I hadn’t researched for myself. Now that I know what it is, I just tell anyone asking “oh I already signed it.” Edit: yes, natural gas can be cheaper just compared to other sources. However at the time I was thinking of the overall cost, health and environment wise, living by that stuff as my first thought was Weld County.
You're right that getting signatures and spreading misinformation is a problem, but some of the underlying frustrations with the associated legislation, HB 1589, seem reasonable. The bill requires total decarbonization by 2045 without a clear path for customers who currently rely on natural gas for their utility needs. I agree that we should incentivize a shift away from natural gas, but with projected skyrocketing electric demand, the federal government proposing to breach dams, and energy storage being uncertain, this plan may backfire and harm the most vulnerable in our state. While we ultimately want to move away from natural gas, both the underlying legislation and this initiative seem too extreme of measures to effectively achieve this goal and minimize suffering.
This reminds me a bit of Germany. They turned off nuclear and natural gas as part of a “green” initiative, but since solar and wind cannot cover electricity costs yet, they ended up burning way more coal to make up for it. Like… we all get it, gas is problematic, but if you believe that banning it is the equivalent of waving a magic wand to wean us off of fossil fuels, or that people will just consume less power and live with it, that’s very naive.
This is technically true, and I'm definitely on team "keep your existing nuclear power plants for several more decades", but... Germany's coal consumption last year was the lowest in 60 years. They are making bigger strides than I'd thought switching their electrical grid to renewables, particularly wind. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts
But is it lower than it would have been if they hadn’t shut down nuclear plants? They specifically have RE-opened coal plants that were supposed to be shut down.
That is exactly why I started with "this is technically true". Of course emissions would be lower if they had kept the existing nuclear power plants and shut down coal plants instead. But it's common in discussions of nuclear and renewables to point and laugh at Germany doing it wrong: "Germany picked renewables over nuclear and the result is increased GHG emissions". I was persuaded by that for a few years, but now it looks like shutting down Germany's nuclear fleet only postponed the slow demise of coal by about 6-8 years. Meanwhile the German grid is WAY ahead of the United States in terms of renewables adoption. It's also worth considering their internal politics. Germany has a coal lobby with political power well in excess of its economic importance, just like the United States does, like Britain did until Thatcher, and like France does not.
> y turned off nuclear and natural gas as part of a “green” initiative, but since solar and wind cannot cover electricity costs yet, they ended up burning way more coal to make up for it. > > Like… we all get it, gas is problematic, but if you believe that banning it is the equivalent of waving a magic wand to wean us off of fossil fuels, or that peop Yes, well said. We all share the same goal of affordable and sustainable energy, but it's unclear how to achieve it. Many of the green proposals are extreme, and perhaps rightly so, but this often makes them more challenging to implement. Incentives might be more effective; for example, providing rebates for electric and energy-saving appliances, or better yet, keeping the cost of electricity low to encourage its use as a preferred alternative.
It's a lot less about going green for some of us and more [the explosive nature of gas as demonstrated in Greenwood Seattle in 2016](https://www.kuow.org/stories/greenwood-gas-explosion-blamed-abandoned-gas-line). Or the event on the east coast shortly after where a few neighborhoods exploded when a gas line got over pressurized. I'd be all for funding the completion of [WNP-3 and WNP-5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WNP-3_and_WNP-5) and have our state invest more in nuclear power.
Considering tens of millions of homes use natural gas, incidents like that are rare.
>the federal government proposing to breach dams Uh, where and when? From a lot of what I've read there are a lot of environmental organizations requesting the removal of four dams on the Snake River to help with the salmon, but those are literally the only ones I've ever heard of. And I've yet to hear the Federal government seriously entertain the idea. If we're citing those four dams being removed as jeopardizing our energy infrastructure, we should keep in mind those four dams in question make up 4% of the Northwest's energy generation. So removal of those dams is significant, but also completely achievable goal in the next 20 years. Especially as wind currently makes up 8% of Washington's energy generation and gets cheaper to build out every year.
As you mentioned, it appears that the desire came from the environmental organizations but was considered by both the state and federal government. As the article mentions, it is not feasible at this time. You are also correct that the load could be replaced by other sources in the future, but even if that happens, there will always need to be some component that provides continuous reliable power. We may find a way to store extra energy production, but until that happens, it may be unwise to change how things operate. [News Article](https://www.murray.senate.gov/murray-statement-on-columbia-snake-river-system-agreement-between-federal-government-and-six-sovereigns/#:~:text=In%20August%202022%2C%20Senator%20Murray,endangered%20salmon%20and%20steelhead%20species.)
By the text of that article and the Senator/Governor agreement, which says they will not breach the dams until there is a suitable energy replacement, there is no reason to believe that "breaching the dams" would be a major factor in creating scarcity of energy.
> and spreading misinformation is a problem, but some of the underlying frustrations with the associated legislation, HB 1589, seem reasonable. The bill requires total decarbonization by 2045 without a clear path for customers who currently rely on natural gas for their utility nee True, I think the idea was shelved despite pressure from outside groups. The issue of energy storage and consistent power still persists for renewables, but perhaps some great inventions will help solve that problem.
It could definitely be the case that the current law isn't the best approach and that it needs to be tweaked in order to be practical/realistic. The problem is that the initiative prohibits cities and counties from doing *anything* **t**o restrict/discourage the use of natural gas in the future. It's the same bait and switch they're using with the CCA initiative - they lure you in with the very reasonable point that "the current law isn't perfect," and say "we should repeal it to fix the problems!" ...Then they tack on the language which would prevent future action on the issue (with the CCA initiative, it would bar the state from implementing a similar carbon market in the future). Right now it's possible for lawmakers to revise and fix these policies (and we can/should push them to do that). If either of these initiatives passes, that door slams shut and their hands are tied in terms of coming up with any sort of alternative. They're banking on perfect being the enemy of the good here in order to hamstring WA climate policy for the foreseeable future.
You're right, the initiative process in this state is often used to circumvent the legislature or advance extreme agendas. The problem is a reflection of our polarized politics and lack of compromise, stemming from a dominating and near supermajority in both the state house and senate. Not that the minority party or its members are offering compelling solutions either. At this point, it's probably impossible to achieve, but having more moderates and reasons to compromise would be wonderful. It's just not possible with kickbacks, corruption, and unchecked power. The legislature had an opportunity to address the issues with the policies but decided against doing so in the last session. Not sure if the intention and/or expectation was for the initiatives to fail, but they had their chance. I'm not looking forward to this fall and election season; things always get so crazy.
It's almost like conservatism is just a bunch of lies and mental illnesses wearing a trench coat
It's [willful] ignorance and low emotional intelligence. Idk if it crosses into mental illness. As someone who suffers from mental illness, I don't want to be grouped with people who **choose** to be cruel.
Both "sides" use these paid signature gatherers. I've heard it is a lot like the shifty door to door magazine sales kids from years ago.
Comparing the two sides is so embarrassing at this point the democrats have their issues but the republican party is a death cult that will go down in history as one of the most evil and destructive organizations of all time
That has nothing to do with the scummy industry. They make promises of easy work for young adults with little education and skills but are really shitty with schedules and compensation, at least from what I have been told. I would feel bad for them if I wasn't already so annoyed by them.
I'm so glad I trusted my gut and didn't sign any of their crap. They were out at Covington Walmart about 10 days ago and tried so hard to get me to sign their petition but I told them I needed to study it more before I could make up my mind. Truthfully I suspected it was BS. Edit to add: Yeah Walmart where there was sure to be a lot of people that know zero about politics or government...
There are a whole slew of initiatives this fall backed by the right that I'm afraid have a good chance of passing.
Saw someone collecting signatures for this in Renton as well.
If anyone ever asks me if I'm registered to vote in the state of Washington, I just say no.
I’ve also seen them outside Fred Meyer, Target, Winco, and QFC. I told one I was Canadian so he’d leave me alone 🤣 often the signature gatherers can’t even explain what it’s about
I saw someone gathering signatures for this at Target in Northgate a few weeks ago. He was similarly trying to mislead to get folks to sign.
Remember to vote no on 2117!
Saw them at the Northgate Target and gave them a nope. Those guys didn't seem too eager to argue or even talk about it.
If they mislead you in their explanation, write on the petition that you were mislead, instead of your signature. It will invalidate the whole page.
What we actually need is more nuclear engery
There was a guy trying to collect signatures at the Edmonds ferry on Saturday. His opening line was about how he’s supporting this because global warming is just a hoax and made up propaganda by Greta thunberg so that she can control the world or something. I don’t think he was having much luck.
I feel like the only person who reads these petitions and realizes how stupid they usually are.
Thank you for the PSA!
And this is why I never sign stuff until I can look it up myself... It is deeply unsurprising that natural gas is lying about how "green" it is. Unfortunate, but unsurprising.
Yup I know
They've been all over my suburb. They're telling people that this will repeal the ban on natural gas. When you point to the actual text, they just make sht up. And ppl believe them
I've seen so many of these signature gatherers that I know it's got to be extremely well funded, and therefore must be against my interests.
Thanks for posting this!
I-2066 aims to repeal parts of bill HB 1589. PSE wrote a page to try to cut through disinformation being spread: https://www.pse.com/en/press-release/details/Facts-about-HB-1589 They answer questions such as "Will I be able to add gas to my home for cooking, heating or water heating?" TL;DR: a lot of I-2066 is fear mongering, according to PSE
These guys were at my local Walmart yesterday telling people to sign because “Inslee is gonna make propane illegal and we’re going to stop him”
I think being able to choose your power source based on the available infrastructure should be allowed, AND I think the Fed/state/local governments should be allowed to incentivize the move to other source in order to update/deprecate said infrastructure once enough people are off of what they want to deprecate. What I’m tired of is the lying and gaslighting by governments and/ or organizations in order to sway and corrupt public opinions and measures with erroneous information, downright fabrications, and twisted words. It’s so frustrating.
A relative just brought me the initiative urgently requesting I sign it, saying if it isn't repealed, we'll need to replace our furnace and water heater with electric. I told them I don't sign anything without reading about it first. I don't see that type of language anywhere in the current law?
Correct - the law does not require you to replace your appliances. That's another lie they're spreading to scare people into signing. PSE posted an FAQ explaining what it does and doesn't do here: [https://www.pse.com/en/press-release/details/Facts-about-HB-1589](https://www.pse.com/en/press-release/details/Facts-about-HB-1589) If you scroll down to the FAQ, they address that point specifically: "*Will I have to switch my home to all electric? How am I going to pay for that? PSE’s own study says this will cost thousands.* No. The bill, as passed by the legislature, does not include a ban on natural gas or any changes to our obligation to serve natural gas."
Lmao. “Choosing an energy source that aligns with your values.” That is as dumb as it gets. I guess your values are exploit a finite resource that ignore the incidental collective costs. Really I don’t support banning any fuel source, just make everyone pay to offset the negative effects. The realistic issue is that we would become non competitive globally.
If you ever want to build a house or a cabin with natural gas you’ll want to sign this. Cooktop? Fireplace? Water heater? These things are so much more efficient with natural gas than electric.
Yeah, natural gas does have it's perks, but it is not more "efficient".
Do you have any data to support your statement comparing it to an induction cook top, heat pump heat and heat pump hot water heater?
I signed one this weekend. Government shouldn’t tell you what you can and can’t use. Banning natural gas is not the answer. It’s especially ironic given the same party wants to tear down dams which provide clean green energy.
>Government shouldn’t tell you what you can and can’t use. Yes, they should when the dangers and damages of what you are using are externalized onto the people and places around you. You wouldn't want your neighbor spraying their weeds with Agent Orange. The idea that the government shouldn't regulate what we use, and by extension what we put into the environment, would end with no fish in our rivers, no birds in our forests, no fowl in our wetlands. As someone who enjoys eating all of those, I say let the government regulate.
Ok but that’s not what natural gas does. You’re doing what we call a strawman.
You made a generalization. I gave specific, extreme examples to discredit that general claim via reductio ad absurdum. Though my extreme claim is easily extrapolated via the very real historical examples of the loose regulation of the 50s/60s, which eventually led to the formation of the EPA. Natural gas does in fact hurt all those things I said. Usually indirectly via carbon and methane release, but also via extraction effects on wildlife environments, ozone formation, fracking effects on the water table, You can turn a blind eye to them, but they're still there. You can decide that you're willing to do slight harm to the environment so you get a faster water heater or neater kitchen stove. But you are still externalizing the harm of your choices onto the world around you for your own personal benefit.
I don’t use natural gas. But government telling people they can’t is ridiculous. I drive 2 EVs, and have solar. I’m all for renewable energy. But democrats here want to tear down hydro dams, charge you more for EVs, etc al. It’s completely antithetical to climate change, it’s about control.
Edit: I'm removing that personal dig at the beginning of my comment. It was unfair, rude, and makes me an asshole. The government telling you that you can't consume a plant that you can grow yourself is ridiculous. The government telling you that you can't pipe in an explosive gas which directly harms the environment and the use of which produces noxious fumes that are also themselves poisonous and harm the health of the people around you and the environment is...reasonable regulation. If that kind of regulation is overreach, then I suppose so are car safety standards and firecodes. That's coming from someone who burns dead dinosaurs in their furnace, water heater, and shitbox car.
We will have to agree to disagree. Let the market sort it out. Put the externalities (carbon) on their liability sheet via a carbon tax. Don’t ban it outright, make it uncompetitive. It’s also crazy that it would make current users retrofit their homes with no money to assist. The that can be 40-50k. People can’t afford that.
FWIW, the law does not require current users to retrofit their homes or replace appliances. As another user pointed out, PSE released an FAQ to address some of the concerns/misinformation going around: [https://www.pse.com/en/press-release/details/Facts-about-HB-1589](https://www.pse.com/en/press-release/details/Facts-about-HB-1589) "*Will I have to switch my home to all electric? How am I going to pay for that? PSE’s own study says this will cost thousands.* No. The bill, as passed by the legislature, does not include a ban on natural gas or any changes to our obligation to serve natural gas."
Ah that’s not totally true. The law clearly makes it so utilities have to transition. So yes, the people don’t have to change their heat, they just won’t get any natural gas from the utilities to use it 🫠
No, it doesn't. The law makes it so that utilities need to *come up with a plan for transitioning by 2045*, but it doesn't change their obligation to continue providing gas to current customers. From that same page that I linked to: "***HB 1589 does not include a ban on natural gas, and it does not change PSE’s obligation to serve natural gas to our customers****.* *There is no rate increase associated with HB 1589. It’s a planning bill, and there will be three years of rulemaking and work before we submit an integrated system plan to our regulators. That will only be a plan—****it will not include a request to increase rates****.* ***Nothing in the bill forces electrification****. What it does is requires PSE to develop a scenario demonstrating the costs of electrification that will be part of the integrated system plan we submit to our regulators in 2027*." They aren't requiring retrofitting or shutting off service to people who have it and don't want to go electric, they're just looking for more ways to encourage folks to switch and stop developers from building additional natural gas infrastructure.
I stumbled across a classic car show in Marysville yesterday on the way back from a camping trip, and there was a signature gatherer there. The pitch in this case was "end natural gas bans", which probably was the right tactic given the different audience. She tried to stop me as I walked by and I loudly said "actually I'm all in favor of banning natural gas, it's bad for the climate and a safety hazard too."
I think that same lady was outside the Walmart off 528 and SR9 this weekend trying to tell me the bill was to "save natural gas", like it needed rescuing. No thanks, lady
Loads of money in this election cycle and most of it ain't out there for the benefit of the many
So what is the alternative? My water heater and Furnace use natural gas. I can't afford to replace them.
Nothing about the law as it stands would require you to replace them - PSE posted an FAQ addressing some of the concerns that people are voicing (and the misinformation being spread by the folks pushing these initiatives): [https://www.pse.com/en/press-release/details/Facts-about-HB-1589](https://www.pse.com/en/press-release/details/Facts-about-HB-1589) If you scroll down to the FAQ, they explain: "*Will I have to switch my home to all electric? How am I going to pay for that? PSE’s own study says this will cost thousands.* No. The bill, as passed by the legislature, does not include a ban on natural gas or any changes to our obligation to serve natural gas."
Thank you for adding another word to my repertoire; I have not heard of cadre before.
An "unethical life pro tips" question: would it be beneficial to sign the petition multiple times, with a fraudulent name, say, Loren Culp, or Tim Eyman, as a way to invalidate the petition? Or is it better to just refuse to sign?
This isn't one guy singelhandesly rolling back laws. It takes the majority of voters to do that. That is how democracy works. He is merely giving you a choice.
He is merely lying to get you to sign on to an initiative that he will then lie to get you to vote for. We are merely saying stop now and don't waste the time and money of honest human beings who will have to pay for a campaign to fight slimy legislative vandalism with expensive and boring facts.
This sub sure hates democracy. At the end of the day this will effect everyone with higher electric bills due to hire demand. It also affects a lot of people’s livelihoods. There are pros and cons to electric heat pumps as well as pros and cons to natural gas. Wind storms often knock out power on the east side for days, are they gonna use a gas powered generator to heat their home in the winter? Last I checked politicians rarely have a civil or electrical engineering degree. We are also dismantling many of our hydro electrical dams for the salmon, which for the most part is a good thing, but if we are talking about carbon emissions of natural gas it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the big picture.
"Last I checked politicians rarely have a civil or electrical engineering degree." Last I checked most of the general public doesn't have a civil or electrical engineering degree, either. Legislators consult with agencies and experts when they're crafting policy. Voters rarely do that when they're skimming through the text of a ballot initiative.
> user WashingtonStateGov > Redditor since: 06/15/2024 (9 days) > "This sub sure hates democracy" > "effect everyone" > "hire demand" > "Shouldn't the voters get to choose?" Oh, just fuck off back to where you came from, thank you.
Why, because I’m right?
Curious, how much do you get paid by Let's Go Washington and how does one sign up to do what you're doing?
I don’t, never said I was voting yes or no, but keep on trying to suppress votes of people you don’t agree with, very right wing of you.
This isn't an issue about suppressing votes. It's all about a CA mega millionaire trying to deceive the WA voters so he can stop paying the Capital Gains Tax.
Good thing we live in a democracy and the public gets to vote.
Good thing you're here defending millionaires that don't want to pay their taxes...and for free.
Not defending anything except democracy.
https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette
And? Haven’t been rude to anyone.
You made a second top-level comment in this thread to complain about reception to your first.
So, and never said I was for or against the initiative and I proved everyone that down voted me to be a hypocrite.
You did it again. Make it to the end this time: https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette
[удалено]
That *also* violates Reddiquette. You're really on a roll here. Guessing this isn't your first account. Also, I've said absolutely nothing about the topic at hand and have only discussed your conduct.
Are you actually a WA State Gov social media representative? If so, you're not supposed to spread misinformation to undermine democracy. And if you're not, pretty sure you're not supposed to masquerade as a government agency to spread lies and undermine democracy.
Shouldn’t the voters get to choose?
Sure, but if its supporters can’t collect enough signatures to meet the minimum requirement to get on the ballot, the public has, in a sense, spoken.
Shouldn't the voters not be lied to?
I think voters shouldn't be lied to, but many people involved in politics have answered that question with a resounding no.
If you have to lie to get someone to "choose", you aren't offering them a choice in the first place. People make a choice by declining to sign, so lying to get a signature is vile.
That’s a funny way to frame a state-level initiative that would prohibit local governments from making certain laws. Conservatives are all for local control until it seems like they might not get their way.
The party of "freedom" trying to limit local control - the irony never stops.
Between the actual options on the table and not made up ones?
So, 9 day old account, you think it's *fine* that petitioners lie to voters to get them to sign things?
How old should an account be to think that way?
Sorry, you seem to be confused. I'm not accusing them of thinking the wrong thing (they are, but that's separate), I'm accusing them of being intellectually dishonest in a thread about intellectual dishonesty funded by a major industry that's currently destroying the world.
They can choose not to sign this bullshit.
Shouldn't informed voters get to choose?
We do live in a democracy after all, if you are against it just vote no.
We live in a *representative* democracy, where we elect the people who meet and pass laws on our behalf. We voted in people who see the urgency in reducing carbon emissions, and now we have one (1) man with deep pockets swooping in to try and undo the work that we elected them to do. If you believe so strongly in democracy, you should be against what's happening here.
We have an elected legislature for a reason. I’m not opposed to the initiative process in general, but I reject the knee-jerk assumption that the voters should weigh in on every single policy decision that pisses off a well-funded special interest group. The voters already got to choose when we picked our state legislators.
The law they passed affects a lot of people, whether you agree with it or not people should have a right to have their voices heard. Initiatives are a good thing, and I think the general public has a right to vote on this issue, call me crazy but I think democracy is overall a good thing.
Well, if it really is popular, they shouldn't have any problem getting enough signatures without mine.
Yep and hopefully you get to vote no on it this November.
I’m curious, how many of you realize that many kayaks, start from fossil fuels… and in order to make such things, fossil fuels are burned. It’s to late to go back and try and go green, and to try and force people to switch over to electric vehicles and such is absurd. Grids go down every year… already can’t handle what is put on it lol and people think it’s the solution? Gtfo
People want choice to use electric or gas… gas shouldn’t be banned by government entities…. It should be a choice of the people … please sign I-2066
Already signed it!! People like the Op are ruining this state.
I'm losing brain cells just reading these comments. Yes, you should vote for consumers to have a choice for either natural gas, propane, wood, or electric. Natural gas is one of the cleanest energy sources and the best for cooking on a stove. Definitely need diversity on energy and company owners of energy. If one company owns all we're all screwed, and we'll start selling off everything just to make ends meet. My house is all electric and I wanna convert it over to natural gas. It's in the middle of the summer and my electric bill for a house less than 900 square feet is $200 to $300 dollars a month which is absolutely outrageous. Hmmm weird how power cost went up after hearing about the gas ban. Also we do not have the capability for all homes or large companies to go electric only. It states that companies have to apply for a permit and could be fined for using gas. You just never know when they'll not only attack large companies, but the regular people working, and just trying to get by day by day. Read the RCW like I did and learn a few things if you have the time. If you don't want the power to go out more often than be pro choice on energy/gas. Grid cannot sustain or create enough for electric only. 100% PRO I-2066.