What is Initiative 2117?

Phuong Brown lives in Walla Walla, in the 1890s house in which her late husband was born. 

And, though her gas furnace and air conditioner don’t date back a century, they are far from new. 

This past summer, the air conditioner broke. Brown, who’s retired from nursing but still volunteers regularly, came home to find it was 92 degrees inside. Her two little dogs, Buster Brown and Missy Loraine, were panting hard. 

“These guys stay home by themselves, so they need to be comfortable,” Brown said. “They’re my kids!” 

Things will be different next summer, as Brown is getting an energy-efficient heat pump to heat and cool her home. “I’ll welcome the new system,” she said. “So that I don’t have to worry: Is the air on? Is the heat gonna be okay when I come back?”

The heat pump will help Brown save on utility bills — and, compared to her gas furnace, will also cut her CO2 emissions by more than 90% over the next 15 years. That matters because CO2 is a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. 

Installing a heat pump can cost upwards of $10,000. Brown said she would have had to scrimp for years to afford one on her own. 

But she’s getting her heat pump for free, thanks to a program funded by the Climate Commitment Act. That law that could get repealed on Election Day, if Washington voters pass Initiative 2117.

The Climate Commitment Act, or CCA, went into effect in 2023. It’s the main way Washington is trying to get to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. To achieve that goal, it became the second state, after California, to establish a “cap-and-invest” program for most large entities.

Here’s how it works: Washington put a cap on the amount of CO2 that the state can emit. That cap will go down over time.

Big businesses must pay for credits to release greenhouse gasses. In theory, as the CO2 cap falls, the cost of those credits will rise. That should incentivize businesses to pollute less. 

In the meantime, those big polluters’ payments are invested into programs that boost clean energy and combat climate change.

Stephanie Noren, the Washington communications director for the nonprofit Climate Solutions, thinks the CCA is a good way to hold polluters accountable. “If large businesses are going to cause pollution, they’re going to emit CO2, methane, other things in the atmosphere, they might as well pay to do it,” she said.  

Washington’s cap-and-invest program raised $1.8 billion in its first year. That helped fund things like EV charging stations, electric school buses and heat pumps, such as the one that Brown is getting. 

Brown learned about the opportunity to get a heat pump from a flier posted by Blue Mountain Action Council, a local nonprofit. In the past three months, it’s used CCA-funded grants to help 130 low-income families pay their energy bills. It has also helped four families replace faulty or old furnaces, with many more installations planned.  

Fernando Avina works as an energy auditor for the organization. “I see furnaces or space heating that could date back to even older than 1960 or 1950,” he said. “Those are energy hogs. And when the client tells you they’re paying up to $400 a month to keep their house warm, that’s a huge burden to carry.”

Blue Mountain Action Council is running its heat pump program as a pilot for now, while it waits to see what happens with Initiative 2117. 

That initiative, which would repeal the CCA, was sponsored by Let’s Go Washington, a political action committee founded by hedge fund manager Brian Heywood. The group says the CCA has pushed up gas prices while doing little to curb carbon emissions. 

One analysis suggests that the CCA did lead to an average gas hike of 27 cents per gallon. The emissions question, however, won’t be answered for a while, as that data is on a lag.

Todd Myers, who works on environmental issues at the Washington Policy Center, a conservative think tank, is critical of the CCA. “A lot of this is about faith in ideology,” he said, “and a desire to feel like you’re doing something rather than demanding actual results.” 

Myers said many of the CCA’s programs aren’t focused on metrics, and that too much money goes to government overhead. 

“We need a different approach that is focused on individual action and individual empowerment to reduce emissions,” he said. “Rather than saying, ‘We face an existential crisis, let’s trust the politicians to fix it.’”

One thing that’s certain: Other states are looking to Washington’s cap-and-invest program as a model. If I-2117 passes, and the CCA is repealed, that could have ripple effects across the country.