Westneat: Voters keep proving it ain’t easy out here being green

Yet this same electorate voted down the climate-change initiative 57 percent to 43 percent (after also voting down a similar carbon-tax measure in 2016). Awkwardly, it means we’re fine telling pollsters we’re green and worked up about the fate of the planet. Even as we’re voting fossil fuel.

Conservatives call this inner conflict of the liberals an “environy.” The environmentalist magazine Grist gently mocked us, too: “Washingtonians, bless their damp and seasonally depressed hearts, have been trying to make a carbon tax happen for what seems like forever. A moderate proposal didn’t win enough support in 2016. This time … it also didn’t pass. Look forward to Grist’s coverage of version 3.0 in 2020!”

Are we just hopeless “green hypocrites?” Or are there deeper lessons to be learned from the jarring outcome?

Backers of Initiative 1631 blame the loss on the $31.5 million gusher of oil money spent against the measure, a record here. That probably had a lot to do with it, though the carbon tax two years ago only attracted a tiny fraction of that opposition — and it failed, too.

A bigger cause, I think, is that Washington is just congenitally tax-averse for such a blue state. In the past 20 years, we have voted for only two statewide tax increases (a cigarette tax in 2001, and a 6.5-cent gas tax in 2005). That’s it, and those are some tiny taxes.

The further problem with the carbon fee is that it’s a sin tax on fossil fuels. Economists say that’s the best way to reduce carbon pollution. But to voters, I sense it feels more like we’re being told to drink a kale-quinoa smoothie. It’s punishment for a good cause.

My hunch is voters would like to see a more positive proposal. Hawaii is doing this with its pledge to go 100 percent renewable energy by 2045. There was a bill in our Legislature last session to try that here, but it didn’t make it to a floor vote. (It got bogged down in a fight over whether nuclear power should qualify.)

Nothing comes free, and Hawaii’s plan will likely also result in higher power rates. But a rallying cry of “We’re going 100 percent renewable to tackle climate change,” with some incentives, could be rebranded as a sort of green New Deal.

They say hypocrisy is another word for the gap between your aspirations and actions. Whatever you call it, the Evergreen State’s gap is definitely showing.

Minimum wage is popular

The other election result I noticed involves the minimum wage. Which, speaking of a rebranding, continues to amaze.

Two more red states approved huge increases in their base wages — Missouri from $7.85 to $12 an hour, Arkansas from $8.50 to $11. Both won by more than 25 percentage points.

This means higher minimum wages now have been voted on in 12 states in the past four years, and won every time.

Democrats, with your newfound majorities, if all you did was push a 100 percent renewable-energy crusade and a higher minimum wage, you would find yourselves sitting pretty when the next election rolls around.