OLYMPIA — If the Democrat-controlled Legislature fails to pass a low-carbon fuel standard this session, Steve Hobbs, one of their own, will get blamed.<\/p>\n
He knows it.<\/p>\n
The Lake Stevens Democrat is chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, where the legislation will get a hearing Thursday afternoon, April 4.<\/p>\n
What happens after that is unknown.<\/p>\n
Technically, the legislation, House Bill 1110, needs to be approved by the panel by April 9 to have a shot at becoming law. Hobbs has made clear he isn’t a fan of the bill and has made no commitments to bring it up for a vote.<\/p>\n
Environmentalists and progressive Democrats are turning up the heat on him to advance it. Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee wants it, too – as does his presidential-candidate self.<\/p>\n
Representatives of the oil industry, trucking association and business organizations are lobbying him equally hard to bottle it up.<\/p>\n
And a few House colleagues who helped to pass it on a 53-43 vote want it to die, as well. Apparently they voted for it with their fingers crossed, hoping the moderate Hobbs would put the brakes on it in the Senate.<\/p>\n
“There are House Democrats who came up to me and said, ‘Are you going to kill that bill because I voted for it knowing you would kill it,’” he confirmed.<\/p>\n
The bill would require that gasoline be produced with a little less concentration of carbon molecules. Then, when the fuel gets burned while powering our cars and trucks, a tad less greenhouse gas and other pollution-causing emissions would be generated.<\/p>\n
Folks driving this policy point out that California and Oregon have gone in this direction, and new standards have not triggered a collapse of their economies or crushed their car-loving cultures.<\/p>\n
Opponents caution it won’t be easy or cheap to do. Ultimately, gas prices would climb in Washington, at least a couple of pennies a gallon, to cover the corporate tab for research, development and distribution.<\/p>\n
This is what causes Hobbs to lose interest.<\/p>\n
If gas prices go up, gas purchases will go down. Economists call it price elasticity of demand. It presumes cost-conscious consumers would find ways to curb their fuel consumption due to its higher price.<\/p>\n
So what’s great for the environment is not so great for the state’s transportation budget. Gas taxes are its primary financial fuel, and any drop-off means potentially less revenue for preserving and maintaining highway infrastructure, let alone financing new projects.<\/p>\n
“I don’t want to pass something out that takes money away from our budget,” he said.<\/p>\n
What’s the end game? Does Hobbs seek something in exchange for moving the low-carbon fuel standard legislation to the next stage?<\/p>\n
What he might be willing to deal on is a new transportation package equivalent to what lawmakers passed in 2015.<\/p>\n
He is trying to find sources of money for a few critical projects like widening the westbound U.S. 2 trestle between Lake Stevens and Everett, and building a new bridge for I-5 over the Columbia River. And he’d like to bolster funding of transit and make a serious dent in removing culverts and other barriers to fish passage.<\/p>\n
Early in the session he proposed a $16 billion package. It would even be partly funded with a carbon tax, a favorite of environmentalists. Yet it’s gotten the brush-off from Democratic legislative leaders and the governor, who has championed the value of putting a price on carbon to arrest climate change.<\/p>\n
Hobbs is also open to establishing a cap-and-trade system as long as it generates dollars for transportation. Sen. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, has introduced a bill that could be such a vehicle. It, too, looks to be a long shot, though conversations are taking place.<\/p>\n
For the four-term senator who still harbors aspirations for statewide office, it’s a situation with few options for a win.<\/p>\n
Hobbs will endure political bruising under almost any scenario.<\/p>\n
And he knows it.<\/p>\n
Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623; jcornfield@herald net.com. Twitter: @dospueblos.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" OLYMPIA — If the Democrat-controlled Legislature fails to pass a low-carbon fuel standard this session, Steve Hobbs, one of their own, will get blamed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":39966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-39965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39965"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39965"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=39965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}