♪♪
-Hello, I'm your host, Brian Callanan.
Initiative 2066 is focused on the future of natural gas
in our state, and the debate over it is heating up quickly.
-Sine die.
-Olympia lawmakers passed House Bill 1589 this year
to help Puget Sound Energy
reach our state's climate protection
and energy-efficiency goals,
but opponents call it a de facto ban on the use
of natural gas and propane.
-I want people to have a choice.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Brian Heywood, the hedge fund manager
leading the conservative group Let's Go Washington,
is pushing back on the state's plans.
He paid workers to gather more than a half million signatures
in 48 days and get Initiative 2066 on the ballot.
-Nobody's done it that fast,
and you don't do something that fast,
if it's not popular.
-I-2066 would stop local governments
from banning or discouraging the use of natural gas
and challenge what Heyward calls a costly state plan
to quickly build out electrical infrastructure
that he says will leave many people out in the cold.
-It's very anti-human. It's anti-poor.
You say you're doing this for the environment,
but you really seem like you're doing this more
because you have an agenda,
not because it's the right thing to do.
-It's an initiative that's actually poorly written
and has really broad reaching implications.
-Claire Lane is an anti-hunger specialist
and part of a coalition opposing 2066,
a measure she says could hurt utility rebate programs meant
to help Washingtonians transition to a cleaner,
more efficient, and less expensive energy future.
-It is backed by special interests
that really are interested in making profits
from the fossil fuel industry.
They are not putting communities first.
-It's a high-energy debate over natural gas.
-That's what this initiative is about,
is protecting that consumer choice.
-The real reason we oppose Initiative 2066
is because it would raise costs for families.
-We've got our eye on I-2066 next on "City Inside/Out."
♪♪
-To discuss I-2066 a little bit further,
we have with us Greg Lane,
who is executive vice president
of the Building Industry Association of Washington,
the BIAW, which sponsored the measure.
Greg, good to have you here.
-Thanks for having me today. -You bet.
We also have with us Daniel Hammer.
He is the owner of Sutter Home & Hearth,
which installs a lot of gas appliances.
We don't do commercials here on Seattle Channel,
but thank you for your expertise and thanks for being here.
-We don't either. -Yeah, right. Yeah.
[ Laughter ] Got it, got it, got it.
In opposition to this measure, we have Leah Missik with us.
She is acting Washington director of Climate Solutions,
a nonprofit that supports
climate stability and resilience.
Leah, good to see you. -Thanks, Brian.
Thanks for having me. -You bet.
Also on the "no" side, Jason Lear,
owner of Batt + Lear,
who builds and remodels energy-efficient homes.
Jason, good to have you, too. -Thanks.
-All right, here we go. Going to jump right into it.
An opening statement, if you could.
Daniel, why do you support this measure?
-Well, I'm here today on behalf of the 22 people
that I work with at Sutter Home & Hearth
and on the tens of thousands of customers
that we've done business with over the last 45 years.
We sell them installed natural gas appliances.
Like you said, these natural gas appliances, uh,
improve the quality of life for people who own them.
Um, they're clean, they're efficient.
They help people reduce their energy costs.
Um, and they give people choice in terms of the energy
that they're going to use, uh,
in taking care of their homes and their families.
They also provide heat and security
when the power goes out.
The people of Washington State
are overwhelmingly in support of natural gas.
We know that natural gas is clean,
affordable, and efficient.
We know that the same thing
that we were told ten years ago is true today,
that it's a decarbonizing force.
We know that in addition to, uh, it providing warmth,
it also provides economic security as well as,
uh, energy security.
And finally, it's a valuable community resource
that we can't have put at risk by a misguided
or short-sighted policy.
So that's why I'm here today in support of I-2066.
-Got it. Leah, some thoughts here
about why you oppose this measure.
One minute, please. -Of course.
And thanks for the opportunity
to talk about initiative 2066 today.
It would increase costs
and turn back the clock on energy efficiency.
So this came up really quickly, right?
I think a lot of folks
don't really understand what Initiative 2066
or is or what it would do.
And I think a good first step is to actually consider
who is behind this initiative.
So this initiative is one of four
that is going to be on the ballot in Washington.
And it was funded by right-wing ideologues
in conjunction with corporate special interests.
The PAC behind this initiative
has received out-of-state donations
from fossil fuel corporations and Koch Industries,
that is the Koch brothers.
But of course, the real reason we oppose Initiative 2066
is because it would raise costs for families,
renters and homeowners alike.
It also would roll back the clock on energy efficiency
and on modern building protections.
Of course, we all know that if we're not efficient,
if we waste energy, costs go up.
And that's what this initiative would do.
In just the short month that our campaign has been running,
we have gotten over 100 different businesses
and organizations in opposition.
And so, you know, these range from small businesses
to builders to advocates to nurses and doctors.
And we're all aligned in opposition
because this would really increase costs.
-Thank you very much for that.
I'm going to pull apart some of those issues in a little bit.
And Greg, I wanted to make sure I got this piece
out of the way to start with.
So supporters of 2066
say the state enacted what amounts to a ban on natural gas
when it passed House Bill 1589 earlier this year.
This is a bill that the state says is meant
to help Puget Sound Energy reach its climate goals.
The state also says there's nothing in 1589
that bans natural gas.
In fact, utilities are required by law
to offer that option to customers.
I just want to make sure I clear this up.
Why does the yes camp say
that the state wants to ban natural gas?
-Well, in the in the legislation itself,
it said that, uh, Puget Sound Energy
is required to fully electrify its service.
So that is a ban on natural gas.
-Over a period of time. Okay.
-The opponents of banning gas
don't like to talk about natural gas bans
because they know that it's not popular with the public.
So they use use of euphemisms.
They talk about electrification.
They talk about not, you know, not using fossil fuels.
They talk about, you know, reducing carbon.
But what they're -- When they say those things,
what they're talking about is banning natural gas.
The intent and the outcome of House Bill 1589
is a natural gas ban in the Puget Sound Energy service area,
and that's why the people reacted so vehemently to this.
We collected 546,000 signatures in seven weeks.
This is -- This was not funded by out-of-state interests.
This was a grassroots movement
that people around the state jumped on board.
This is the second most number of signatures
that any initiative in the state's history has collected.
And we did it at seven weeks in record time.
So the people of the State of Washington
are the ones that are rising up to say,
we don't want a ban on natural gas.
We want to protect that choice for us.
-Got it. Jason, any thoughts here, please?
-I'm confused by that because my --
So you know, I'm a builder.
I've been working with customers,
homeowners for the most part for 24 years in this city.
Um, it seems to me that
my read of the initiative is we're taking away choice,
not adding choice if we pass this initiative.
I don't want to pass this initiative
because it's going to roll back a lot of the progress
that our state has made.
I -- I don't. I don't see it as a ban.
I see it as a limitation of my ability
to put in the better technology,
higher performance items that I do specify.
Now, you know, I'm a customer.
We don't not use natural gas.
I own a green building company.
I don't talk my people out of it.
And I don't think this bill is going to make people not use it.
It is going to allow people the choice still
to use any fuel they want.
I don't pitch a fuel.
I pitch the right solution for the -- for the need at hand.
If a homeowner wants to do heating and cooling,
well, they, shoot, they need electricity.
-Okay. Okay. -Right?
-Maybe just -- -I'm just confused.
And I need more explanation of how this
is saving people money.
-Well, right now, people have the choice.
You know, people are served by
Puget Sound Energy in this region.
They're served by other -- other utility companies,
and they have the option of choosing natural gas
or electrification.
-Can I jump in for a second here?
-The initiative does not change that.
People will have the choice... -Right.
-...moving forward. What changes it
is the law that was passed,
The new state energy code,
which bans the use of natural gas in new residential
and commercial construction.
So it's the laws that are being passed
that are limiting people's choice.
They'll no longer have the option to choose natural gas.
If you pass the initiative, that's the only way
to preserve that choice moving forward for consumers.
-Okay. Leah, did you have a thought there?
-Yeah, yeah I do.
This -- This again, as Jason mentioned,
is really about limiting choice
and limiting access to energy efficiency and to clean energy.
I do want to note that state law says --
it is in current state law --
If you live in a gas utility service territory,
they have the obligation to serve you gas.
That is state law.
What this does do, however,
and if you look at the initiative text,
it takes Puget Sound Energy,
which is required to plan holistically
to keep costs low for its customers.
The initiative text literally strikes out
cost-effective -- cost-effective planning
to serve its customers.
This would cause energy rates to rise
and prevent us from providing more energy efficiency
and clean energy to Washingtonians.
-Thank you. I want to get into that issue, if I can.
And maybe, Daniel, I can bring you in here.
This whole idea that yes, vote for --
for this measure is a money saver.
And why voting no would end up hurting
more people economically.
In your opinion? What do you think about that?
-Well, I mean,
I think that I would probably first go to
the economic argument, right?
If you have a -- If you have a pool of energy resources
and you reduce how much energy you have accessible to,
it's going to increase the price.
That's basically how that works.
I think that, you know, to Jason's point earlier, you know,
the I-2066 stating that you, you know,
we can't disincentivize or ban natural gas.
And then you coming from the position like,
I don't see how this new HB 1589,
you know, changed the -- the landscape in terms of
whether people would make a choice on natural gas.
Like it's important to note that like, I've been in this space
like I'm standing up against the Seattle City Council,
the building council, the State Building Council,
trying to make cases against situations where they are,
in effect, kind of shadow banning
these different things in different ways.
The City of Seattle wanted to ban new natural gas in 2019.
-Right. -And I had to come down here.
My business was completely at risk.
My customer's right to choose as at risk.
They weren't going to extend new natural gas,
and they were going to shut it off
to residential new construction.
So whether or not HB 1589 is specifically stating that,
and I believe and maybe, you know, can help me on this,
I don't believe that you the HB 1589,
doesn't allow the extension of new natural gas.
-No. -Is that correct?
So those customers are banned in that sense?
-That's not true. I'm afraid that's not true.
-Okay. Okay. -Will impact that.
The obligation to serve is still in state law.
-Okay. Yeah.
So I guess maybe one piece of this too
is what customers are choosing.
If I can move it on a little bit,
it sounds like fewer of them
are actually choosing to use natural gas.
The state talked about those numbers,
went down 7% for residential, 3% for commercial last year.
Did you have a thought about that just to add some context?
-Much of that is because now we are not, you know,
we're -- we're required to use only electrical appliances
in new commercial and residential construction.
So that accounts for the drop in natural gas usage.
If people had the choice to choose
between natural gas and electricity,
you know, that's -- that's what this initiative is about --
it's protecting that consumer choice.
When government dictates what --
that you can only use one source of energy
as -- as Daniel described, the price goes up.
So the appliances that are available
are going to be less available
when government dictates a monopoly like that
and the price for them go up.
But the other key to this bill
is it allows Puget Sound Energy to,
when they're converting all of their system
over from natural gas to all electric,
to pass those costs on to customers.
So that's where the energy -- energy cost increases
are going to come in rate increases to customers.
It's paying for Puget Sound Energy
to transform their system, as required by the state,
from serving natural gas to all electric.
So and then on top of that,
consumers are going to have to pay to convert
their own home or business to an all-electric system.
And the cost of that,
it can be an average of 40 to $70,000
to make that -- make that transition
for every single homeowner
that's served by Puget Sound Energy.
-Thanks. I see some shaking heads over here.
-Well, and I raised my hand because there is a perception
I keep hearing that's like,
somebody's going to come knocking on my door one day
and tell me, "Okay!
It's time to upgrade everything else to electricity."
And, you know, having to implement this work
in the real world, the only things that trigger my,
uh, choice to upgrade to a new electrical or gas system,
an energy system is my request for a permit
to do something else usually, right?
Like, sure, I might just need to replace a furnace
because something broke.
But usually I'm doing something else as well.
It is never the case that somebody says,
I require you today to change out your energy system.
Okay, there is a history in code, in fact,
that the individual homeowner,
if you will, has the right to opt out of even insulation
by not improving that part of their house right now.
And I am I just want to say,
as a bug for later in this conversation,
I'm concerned that we're not talking
about all the other energy efficiency stuff
that might be disincentivize or no longer incentivized.
That's really important to me. -That's a concern.
-This is just equipment we're talking about so far.
Like there's a whole house as a system,
a whole building as a system that we're not talking about.
-And the initiative does not prohibit any incentives
for gas or electrification from happening.
Those are all -- Well, the Puget Sound Energy and the government,
anything can offer incentives
for people to change over from gas to electric
or choose electric over gas.
The initiative does not prohibit that?
-What about the building envelope?
I'm worried that the initiative is limiting energy efficiency.
-It does not change that either.
All it does, again,
is protect the -- protect natural gas from being banned,
restricted or disincentivize to customer service areas
that have access to natural gas now.
Because those bans are taking place
in multiple jurisdictions locally
at the State Building Code Council for new
and residential construction,
and under this new legislation
that was just passed this year by the legislature,
when gas gets shut off,
every homeowner is going to be responsible
for paying the cost of transitioning their home
to all electric appliances.
And again, that is between 40 to $70,000 for a homeowner.
And then the impact on businesses
is also incredibly damaging
for those businesses like restaurants,
who have to have natural gas in order to cook the food
that they prepare.
When the natural gas surface gets cut off,
they have no alternative.
There are not electric appliances that cook...
-When does that happen?
-...at the heat level required for many of those restaurants.
-This isn't something that if this vote passes --
I just want to make sure there's some clarity with this.
You had a point you wanted to make.
-There's a lot of fear mongering
and misinformation going on here.
As I mentioned earlier, state law has an obligation to serve.
If you live in a gas utilities territory,
they have an obligation to serve you energy.
However, independent economic analysis showed
that 1589 keeps costs,
energy costs the lowest, the longest.
This is independent analysis.
This is why the utility moved forward so they can plan.
It was a planning bill so the utility could plan
to keep costs low for its customers,
instead of be impeded from looking at
cost effective solutions.
Again, the initiative literally strikes the text
"cost-effective."
I'll also note that our coalition has been endorsed
by Seattle Restaurants United.
-Okay. Thank you.
I want to make sure I shift gears.
And, Daniel, I'd love to bring you back in here.
There was a point made earlier
by some of the critics of 2066.
It's been made a few other places, too,
that this is a measure backed by big business,
special interest groups,
big money with multi-millionaire Brian Heywood out there
via his conservative Let's Go Washington coalition.
You run a business, too. I know it's a smaller one.
But how do you respond to that critique about the big money
and the big business taking this thing over?
-You know, it's frustrating.
I think it's divisive and dehumanizing, honestly.
Um, there's very normal people who are very committed to this,
and they're fearful of what is going to happen.
And the points being brought up about what is happening now
versus what we're not talking about
is what could happen in the future.
Because I think a lot where I stand on this thing,
and again, I've been working in the legislative space
and the regulatory space,
talking to a lot of these folks
that are able to make these decisions
and push these policies forward.
I've had some frustrating conversations about
how they view this issue
and how they view the long term of what
this is they're going for.
But to group everyone that's saying
we don't support this as like being
in the pocket of the Koch brothers is disingenuous.
We have had hundreds of customers come into my store
and sign up for I-2066, tens of thousands of customers
who have done a lot of done business with us.
And most recently, as this conversation
has become more and more of a thing that we're talking about
with folks in the showroom all the time,
there's a lot of very well-educated,
very concerned and very thoughtful people
who support this because they don't see it
as a step backwards.
They do see it as something
that is going to help move us forward to --
I think it helps to move us forward to decarbonization.
I think that we have any --
I think that we have any conversation about,
you know, one portfolio that just has one answer.
And also the complexity of the energy system
doesn't fit into a tweet.
So we can say we can just electrify the whole system.
But there's many questions that are come from that.
All of that is to say,
we're not in the pocket of Koch, the Koch industry.
My industry was born during the oil ban in the '70s.
We've been small alternative energy business
for 50 years, right.
So it bothers me. -Yeah, I hear you.
Jason, I just wanted to bring in this point
about the amount of people that do support this measure.
I think Greg brought it up earlier.
More than half a million people within 48 days said, yes.
We want to make sure that we at least they want to support 2066.
And how do you look at that,
that groundswell of support for something like this?
-Well, I mean, even my peers and family members,
I've had this conversation with.
The -- They say, "Well, gosh.
I mean, don't you think it's a bad idea to ban gas?
I mean, aren't they right?
It just costs less if we do it this way."
And as soon as I started looking into the issue,
it didn't -- didn't smell right.
It didn't smell the same to me
as it did to my dear family members and friends
asking me this question.
Frankly, it, you know, not pointing any fingers at anybody.
Not saying you're wrong about the Koch brothers.
They did donate, I think. -They did.
-Okay. -I think that's a fact.
But the the question I have is something, not the question.
The concern I have is it doesn't smell right
when I look at it with these other initiatives.
I'm like, something's -- something's amiss here.
I am not getting the straight story.
-Okay. Okay.
-And to your point about the -- the misinformation,
I'm still trying to figure it out.
And frankly, there is nothing I've seen so far
that says that I am not going to see limitations
on energy efficiency incentives,
that I'm not going to see advances in the energy code.
I live in a state I'm very proud of.
-Yeah.
-I love that we are a leader among states
in the United States of energy efficiency.
It's been my whole career. -Yeah.
-I am into buildings being healthier, better buildings.
And if this initiative is any kind of backdoor
or even an incremental step in the other direction, I'm out.
-Okay. -Right? I'm concerned.
-I want to make sure that I touch on climate issues,
which is a huge piece of this, of course.
Leah, can you talk about this?
What a yes vote on 2066, in your opinion,
would do to our climate?
-Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
So it is a direct attack on both energy efficiency
and on clean energy.
If you look at the initiative text,
it does cause problems for Puget Sound Energy
to incentivize people if they so choose,
to upgrade their appliances to more efficient appliances
that provide both heating and cooling.
I also want to note that the real name
for natural gas is methane.
That's what it is. Fossil natural gas is methane.
Methane is an extremely potent climate pollutant.
There's no way around that.
And as a state, we have chosen
to thoughtfully transition to clean energy
over time and to make that affordable for people,
to make it comfortable for people.
This would repeal a very smart planning bill
that keeps costs the lowest, the longest.
-Okay. I just want to make sure I had some response.
-So yeah, first, this does not repeal 1589.
It leaves a lot of what was in 1589 intact, including
it allows Puget Sound Energy
to continue planning moving forward,
and if their customer base chooses to make the move
to more electricity, using more electricity over gas,
they have the ability to plan for that,
of course, and to accommodate consumer choice in that respect.
Um, I also want -- I want to talk about the climate, too,
because the dirty little secret about 1589
and the deal that was cut with Puget Sound Energy,
and Puget Sound Energy has now testified
in front of the Northwest Public Power Commission
and the UTC about this.
And that is Puget Sound Energy itself
is going to have to fire up more natural gas burning plants
to create the electricity to meet the demand
from banning natural gas to consumers.
So they're going to cut off natural gas to consumers,
but they're going to use more natural gas themselves
to create the electricity to meet the demand.
That in my, you know, that is a bit of hypocrisy to me.
And also it means the actual impact on improving the climate.
I'm somebody who would love to see
improvements in climate change.
We have many members who -- who build green
choose to build green.
We encourage those, you know,
those projects to be built
and -- and help train people to do that.
But it's because consumers want that choice.
They should be able to have that choice
to do either natural gas or electric.
-Thanks. Please. -Uh, years ago, 15 years ago,
when I was sitting on the board
to help build the Built Green Program,
that -- I'm a member of your organization.
That -- That program had a member on the board
that was sitting right next to me.
And he kept saying, well, this very argument,
we're going to have to build more natural gas plants to
if we don't incentivize natural gas.
At that time, they were looking for green building programs
to incentivize natural gas,
and I got kicked under the table
for saying, "Why are we doing that?
Why aren't we a little more forward thinking?"
Like, don't we need to get to net-zero energy houses, etc.?
You know why I got kicked under the table?
Because PSC was the biggest sponsor
of Built Green at the time.
Because if they could get more people moving to natural gas --
-If you cut off natural gas... -I don't think that's happening.
-...you're going to have to create more electricity
to meet the demand.
-The renewable -- The renewable path
is how that's going to happen.
-Happily, in Washington,
we have a law that requires 100% clean electricity by 2045.
-It's a 15-years-ago law.
-We also have the Climate Commitment Act,
which unfortunately BIAW is looking to repeal.
-Okay. -I also want to note that --
I'm sorry, Greg, but hearing that
you want to see improvement on climate change,
it's a little rich to me
since you've been posting on social media
that climate change is a fabrication.
-Okay. Okay. -That's not true.
-It's on your Twitter as a week ago.
-Let's -- Let's make sure that we take a deep breath here
because it's time for some final statements here.
Briefly please.
-I'd like to respond to the methane thing though.
-Yeah. -I think that's important.
You know, for a long time -- I'm biased in this.
I understand that. This is my business.
And I've worked really hard to work against that bias
because I want to understand what's going on.
I don't want to be on the wrong side of history.
I've looked a lot into this issue trying to understand
how our energy structure works.
The idea of, you know, energy dense things,
things that are not energy and renewables versus fossil fuels,
nuclear power, all of these other things.
The methane thing was always the biggest problem with me
and trying to understand the natural gas
and why I thought it was a good transitory fuel
and the fugitive emissions, the flaring, the things,
those are the things that have been the challenges.
And then the more that I've looked into it
and the more that I've researched it
in podcasts and reading and whatever
the EPA focuses specifically on
methane emissions and capture,
they have policies in place that put pressure on those suppliers
to target those, and those have been going down.
And to me, what frustrates me is that
it being piped to somebody's house
and being used at the point of use
at anywhere from 80 to 99% efficient,
is such an important resource for people to be able to use.
And we focus on this methane issue, part of it.
And I don't think that that's something
that the businesses out there are going to try
to just lose their product to the atmosphere.
They're working to try to save these things, so.
-Okay, yeah. thank you for that.
We do need to wrap up.
It's time for some closing statements.
Greg, I'll let you go first.
If you could try to keep the 30 seconds, that'd be great.
Well, that's just real simple.
I mean, I-2066 protects natural gas service
for all the consumers that currently have it.
And -- And it's very simple.
It protects their energy choice
and it protects them from the dangerous impacts
that natural gas bans have on them
economically to have to cover the costs
of converting their home,
which is 40 to $70,000 per homeowner,
and on businesses who rely on natural gas
and must have it in able to operate.
Your favorite restaurant,
um, hotels, um, breweries,
all of those producers and manufacturers and restaurants
who must have natural gas will be impacted by this ban.
And I-2066 is the only way to stop the bans from happening?
-If you wouldn't mind, Jason. Real quick.
Let's wrap it up, 30 seconds worth.
-I'll do my best. -Yep.
-Um, I don't understand
why we keep hearing this is an absolute ban.
There's one day it's all going to get shut off.
That -- That is not what I'm reading in this bill.
And we can argue that point until the end.
But I want to say,
the advances this state has made in building energy,
in clean homes, etc., that is my life's work.
I want to see that continue.
I want this state to continue to be a leader in that work.
I want the healthy, high performance homes
and other buildings we build to just continue to get better.
And by the way, I've worked in the restaurant space.
There is some butt kicking stuff out there that isn't gas.
-Okay, all right, a lot to explain here, of course.
Thank you for all of this, and we will be right back.
What are people saying on social media about I-2066,
which would repeal the state's efforts
to phase out natural gas use in homes and businesses.
One person writes...
Another person comments...
We'd like to know what you think.
Send us an email at contact@seattlechannel.org
or find us on social media.
Thank you for that input.
Thank you for your input, as well.
And we will see you next time on "City Inside/Out."
♪♪