What does Last Month's Election Mean for Northwest Climate Policy?
It's conventional wisdom that the new more heavily GOP configuration in Congress spells bad news for climate policy. There's some truth in that, but this week on Locus Focus we look at a more positive side to the story. In what has appeared to be an overall hostile political climate this fall, progressive approaches to climate policy still held their own in most elections across the Pacific Northwest and California. Our guest this week is Eric de Place with the Sightline Institute in Seattle and he'll share with us some reasons to be hopeful, while remaining watchful at the same time.
We'll talk about the defeat of Proposition 23 in California, which would have suspended the state's climate laws, the re-election of California Senator Barbara Boxer and the elections (or re-elections) of California Governor Jerry Brown and Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber. But we'll also look at the difficult course ahead for seriously dealing with climate change, made even more challenging by weakened Democratic control of the region's state legislatures.
Eric de Place, senior researcher, contributes research and writing for the Cascadia Scorecard, especially on sprawl, economic security, wildlife, and other topics. He also writes for the Daily Score blog and contributes to a number of other Sightline projects, including climate policy in the western states. In 2006, Eric’s work helped defeat ballot initiatives in several Western states that would have severely eroded community and environmental protections. Before coming to Sightline, he worked with the Northwest Area Foundation, helping communities develop strategies to alleviate poverty. He has a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. After the world gets fixed, Eric plans to spend much more time reading good books beside remote mountain lakes. Read Eric's latest blog posts here.