Mashup: Battling against a bill (SB 6058) that would link WA's carbon market to California/Quebec

this is going to have minimal impact if any pennies we're talking about pennies potentially just [Applause] pennies is what we're told just pennies the halves versus the have knots it is not just pennies Madam speaker it's been whether people in my district get dinner at night whether the farmers are ever competitive can bring to harvest and compete on a global scale Madam speaker it's not just pennies and bureaucrats will make sure they will change the lives of the people in my district with this policy the climate commitment Act is is on the backs of the lowest income people in our state and they are hurting they're not eating we're trying to feed children in school because they don't have enough food but we want to continue down this path path because we think that we can change and maybe we can change the climate and change the environment and and we're going to have some kind of Utopia but in the meantime we're going to starve people to death can I quote a couple of figures on gas throughout the United States maybe just one state which is the state I'm considering to moving to when I'm retire you can proceed if it relates to the bill it relates to the bill because gas relates to this bill please proceed in southern Utah beautiful uh St George gas price prices today are $3.16 a gallon we cannot fix this problem ourselves this is a world problem this is a federal problem on the backs of washingtonians we are increasing the costs so $2.2 billion have been spent so far by our Industries into this project project and what do we have to show for it extraordinarily difficult cost of living increases for every single Washingtonian it's hit every person at the uh kitchen table Madam speaker I urge that you join me in voting no on this um policy we're not ready to adopt it Madam speaker the cost of this program has been massively regressive on my community members your community members and so many so much so that over 400,000 washingtonians signed on to an initiative to the legislature to repeal this policy one of the comments made by a previous speaker mentioned that a side benefit of the carbon Market was that it produces money Madam speaker it doesn't produce money it extracts money the system in and of itself is not producing anything it's simply removing money from the from individuals from businesses all across our state and moving it somewhere else the only thing the CCA has done is grow government revenues on the backs of our people with crushing and oppressive taxes Madam speaker this bill would make that problem even worse where we have unelected bureaucrats creating agreements that we haven't seen with costs that we do not know about where there is no cap on those costs and Madam speaker this program CCA it's oppressive people do not want it and it has to end Madam speaker am I supposed to be happy if my bill went up $90 and we did linkage and now it's only up $80 am I supposed to be happy about that if we link with California our affordability crisis will get worse I want to respond to another comment made in this debate today about the robust a economy if robust means going broke and selling your farm due to overregulation over Taxation and increase in costs that this policy brings then that's a robust a economy I guess I think not I've been in business for over 50 years from the agriculture production to the Flying V and I get this stuff and we're just adding more out of the backs of our agriculture producers our people that provide the jobs in this state that make our state what it really is this is bad policy Madam speaker it's the haves versus the Have Nots those who do wonder about how to put food on the table versus those who will never Wonder they're still flying in private jets they're still doing the things they do and the people the very people in our districts that we are asking to bear this burden Madam speaker their lives have changed and it hasn't been for the better this is the way my constituents are being overburdened especially in the rural parts of my district where people have to drive long distances either to get to work to get to shopping to get to medical appointments to do a variety of different things they have to drive long distances and the impact that it's already had on fuel leaves them very very concerned that linking to a state that does not have a very good fiscal track record will leave them in worse condition than they are now and it certainly doesn't alleviate the problems that they have right now that's where our time should be focused is on relieving getting rid of the increased cost that they felt over the last year Madam speaker I'm asking you to vote no because as you've heard this scheme as it exists even without this change is causing hardship right now on the people of this state and it's true we know this Madam speaker it's a sinking ship the climate commitment act and this is a desperate measure to try to stop the sinking now might it work I don't know Madam speaker everything we've been told about this scheme so far has been wrong but we can't run the risk of inflicting greater hardship on the people of this state on the Hope on on the faith that this Longshot last ditch effort is going to make the failed system work and Madam speaker as I've said before and it Bears repeating over all of this desperate effort is initiative 217 an initiative to the legislature which has been qualified and certified and will repeal the climate commitment act it renders this desperate measure moot speaker has locked the roll call machine clerk will announce the record Madam speaker there are 57 y 39 Nays two excused have received a constitution majority and grow second subtitute Senate bill 6058 as amended by the house declared pass