Washington state’s carbon market appears likely to survive a November ballot measure to kill it, a new poll shows.
A Cascade PBS/Elway poll found 46 percent of likely voters opposed a ballot initiative that would discontinue the market and 31 percent supported it. Nearly a quarter of voters remained undecided, according to the poll, conducted from Oct. 8 to Oct. 12.
Initiative 2117 on next month’s ballot would repeal the Washington climate law that authorized the state to create a carbon-trading market, which the state calls “cap-and-invest.”
The program forces the biggest polluters to either cut their greenhouse gas emissions below annual limits or to pay environmental penalties known as “allowances.”