The Washington State electorate on November 6 will vote on Initiative 1631, a “pollution” tax on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the stated goal of which is an annual GHG emissions reduction reaching 25 million tons by 2035 and 50 million tons by 2050. Nowhere in the initiative is there any requirement actually to meet these goals — no one suffers any penalty if they are not — a reality that speaks volumes about the true purpose of this proposal: wealth redistribution.

But on the surface, this specific goal of reducing GHG emissions means that the initiative purports to make a contribution toward dealing with anthropogenic climate change, although one searches in vain for any reference to that topic on the proponents’ websites, campaign materials, and other such political advertising.

Temperature “Effects”

Why is that? Like Sherlock Holmes’ dog that failed to bark, the proponents of I-1631 have maintained a deafening silence on the prospective climate impacts of this proposal. So let us do that for them, applying the climate model used by the US Environmental Protection Agency in its analyses of GHG regulatory proposals and similar policies. By 2050 the temperature reduction attendant upon this initiative, making every assumption favorable to it, would be 0.0003 of a degree. By 2100 that figure would rise to 0.0009 of a degree. (If a proportional policy were applied to the US as a whole, the temperature effect by 2100 would be a few one-hundredths of a degree.)

Those temperature effects obviously would be unmeasurable, a reality that explains fully why the proponents studiously have avoided any discussion of the actual climate impacts of I-1631. Instead, they have emphasized, ad nauseam, the supposed benefits of this initiative on “pollution,” a blatant exercise in subterfuge to which I return below.

Wealth Redistribution

For now let us examine the intended wealth redistribution effects of I-1631, another topic that the proponents have attempted to obfuscate. This initiative would raise approximately $1 billion per year — the tax begins at $15 per ton of GHG emissions and rises by $2 annually plus inflation, without limit — and the exemptions from the tax and uses to which the revenues would be put are fascinating.

The exemptions first: The initiative exempts such energy-intensive industries exposed to trade competition as aluminum and concrete producers and such other manufacturers as Boeing. This means that ordinary individuals, businesses, and families will bear a disproportionate burden of this tax, another negative reality that the proponents have avoided.

But $1 billion per year is not chopped liver; someone will receive subsidies at the expense of the ordinary individuals, businesses, and families just noted. The lucky ones — actually, luck has nothing to do with it — are (1) the electric car industry, already a beneficiary of deeply perverse federal subsidies and favoritism that have the effect of subsidizing the wealthy at the expense of everyone else; (2) new forest and water projects that are likely to conflict with other federal and state environmental policies and that should be financed with general revenues rather than a specific tax borne, again, by ordinary individuals, businesses, and families; and (3) an “Environmental and Economic Justice Panel” that is empowered under I-1631, literally, to engage in self-dealing, and that is the very definition of the politicized consumption of tax dollars.

With respect to the last: That panel will be unelected but will make the decisions on how its share of the revenues will be spent. Apart from this blatant effort to reward political allies, I-1631 specifically mandates support of road “demand management.” That means toll lanes and roads, that is, subsidies for transit and construction companies and other interests, the ironic effect of which will be an increase in congestion and emissions. It is likely also to mean various attempts to subsidize urban interests at the expense of suburban, exurban, and rural ones by hampering the ability of motorists to drive their vehicles when and where they see fit.

Rent-Seeking and Pollution

Should anyone doubt that I-1631 is little more than a revenue grab — don’t forget who will bear the costs — let us recall the memory of Washington State Initiative 732 a mere two years ago. That initiative also proposed a carbon tax, with the central difference being that it was intended to be revenue neutral, incorporating cuts in sales and business taxes. Many of the groups now supporting I-1631 opposed I-732 precisely because the latter failed to provide new revenues for them and their political allies.

Where was their deep concern about “pollution” then? Obviously, given the exemptions and explicit subsidies for favored groups, I-1631 has nothing to do with “pollution” and everything to do with “rent-seeking,” that is, the use of government policies to bestow favors on activist groups and narrow interests demanding that they get a share of the revenues, at the expense of everyone else.

“Clean Energy”

The “clean energy” assertions from the proponents are laughable. Notwithstanding the conventional wisdom, wind and solar power systems do not reduce emissions of GHG or conventional pollutants because the unreliability of such unconventional electricity requires the use of fossil fuel backup generation units that must be cycled up and down depending on wind and sunlight conditions. Accordingly, the backup units must be operated inefficiently so as to avoid blackouts, yielding an increase in emissions rates and total emissions measured absolutely once the wind and solar systems achieve a market share of roughly 10 percent.

More generally, there is nothing “clean” about renewables. There is the heavy-metal pollution created by the production process for wind turbines. There are the noise and flicker effects of wind turbines. There is the large problem of solar panel waste. There is the wildlife destruction caused by the production of renewable power. There is the land use both massive and unsightly, made necessary by the unconcentrated nature of renewable energy.

It simply is a reality that renewables are morecostly than conventional energy, in large part because the energy content of sunlight and wind flows is unconcentrated, unlike the case for fossil fuels. This is separate from the theoretical limits on the energy obtainable from those sources. Except perhaps for specialized and highly limited applications in localized contexts, higher costs are an inexorable outcome of GHG policies, notwithstanding ubiquitous assertions to the contrary. (Witness, for example, California.) And so the tax to be imposed by I-1631 is only the beginning: The indirect adverse effects of this initiative are difficult to measure, but they will not be trivial, and will be borne, again, by those not among the ones exempted and the specified beneficiaries.

Pollution Propaganda

And about the endless invocation by the proponents of the term “pollution”: In the context of GHG, that term is political propaganda, the obvious purpose of which is to cut off debate before it begins by assuming the answer to the underlying policy question. Carbon dioxide is not “carbon,” and it is not a pollutant, as a certain minimum atmospheric concentration of it is necessary for life itself. By far the most important GHG in terms of the radiative properties of the troposphere is water vapor; no one calls it a pollutant. Why not? Is it because ocean evaporation is a natural process? So are volcanic eruptions, but the toxins, particulates, and other effluents emitted by volcanoes are pollutants by any definition.

The proponents now are arguing in a campaign mailer that I-1631 will reduce emissions of conventional pollutants in addition to GHG, thus yielding favorable impacts in terms of “dirty, smoky air and increased asthma risk, [and] frequent forest fires.” Wow. Whom do they think they’re kidding? That reduction in emissions will not be costless, and there is little evidence that Washington State has failed to meet the requirements of the federal Clean Air Act, except for emissions of particulates from wood-burning stoves during winter atmospheric inversions and when winds blow smoke into the state from forest fires in British Columbia. For the US, the number of wildfires shows no trend since 1985 despite increasing atmospheric concentrations of GHG.

Put aside the silence of the proponents on the climate phenomena that this proposal supposedly would improve. It has been quite awhile since I have seen political arguments as dishonest as those that have been promoted in favor of I-1631. Washingtonians would be far better off without it.