Billionaire ex-hedge fund manager Tom Steyer’s Super PAC is turning to state Senate races in Oregon and Washington to boost Democratic candidates, a move that would help legislatures there pass climate change bills.
Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action PAC has focused on Senate and gubernatorial races. But much like conservative groups funded by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, the move toward state races underscores the belief that state legislatures can act while Congress remains stuck on energy and climate issues.
Key to Steyer’s goals is the “Pacific Coast Action Plan on Climate and Energy,” a potential regional carbon market among California, Oregon, Washington and Canada’s British Columbia. But Democratic governors in Oregon and Washington don’t have enough support in their legislatures for laws to be passed that would allow them to join the effort.
“The Congress is stuck,” Steyer told reporters at the People’s Climate March in New York on Sunday, hinting at his involvement in state races. “We are huge supporters, as you know, of the whole West Coast compact idea.”
“For that to happen, they need stronger majorities in Oregon and Washington,” he added in response to a question from the Washington Examiner.
Steyer already has shifted $1 million from his national group to a state chapter in Washington, according to public disclosure filings. NextGen Climate will combine with the Washington and Oregon chapters of the League of Conservation Voters for the effort.
Industry groups have been watching Steyer’s moves in the Pacific Northwest for months. They’re concerned about the possibility of a carbon market, as well as the expansion of a California rule that aims to curb greenhouse gas emissions from gasoline that they say will raise fuel costs. Most scientists blame greenhouse gases for exacerbating climate change.
“Steyer’s efforts to impact local races are nothing new, it’s just been done secretly behind closed doors,” Matt Dempsey, a spokesman for industry group Secure our Fuels, told the Examiner.
That is, until now.
In Washington, experts say Steyer’s main goal will be to knock off incumbent Republican State Sen. Doug Ericksen, who heads the Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee. His challenger is Seth Fleetwood, a Democratic lawyer who Republicans have slammed for recently moving into the district.
“Doug Ericksen, personally, is one of the biggest blocks to climate and renewables legislation in Washington,” Matt Krogh, a Bellingham, Wash., campaign director with Forest Ethics, told the Examiner. “As the chair of the Energy, Environment and Telecommunications committee, and a professed ‘agnostic’ on the climate issues, his Senate race is probably the single most important political component to action on climate change in Washington this year.”
Democrats need to swing two seats in the state Senate, or claw back a pair of members who currently caucus with Republicans, to gain a majority in the upper chamber. Environmental activists say that will give Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee the support he needs to push through a range of climate policies.
“There will be a strong push in the leg. For responsible, science-based limits on climate pollution, and for holding polluters accountable for the climate pollution they produce,” KC Golden, the Seattle policy director with Climate Solutions, told the Examiner in an email.
NextGen Climate said it would likely play in at least two races there, saying it would back Democratic challengers Tami Green in the 28th district and Matt Isenhower in the 45th district.
For Oregon, NextGen Climate said it would back Democratic challengers State Rep. Sara Gelser in the 8th district and in the 15th district, Chuck Riley, a former state representative who lost the race for that seat in 2010.
On paper, Democrats have a 16-14 majority in the Oregon Senate. But State Sen. Betsy Johnson, a powerful Democrat from Scappoose, often votes with Republicans and has been the deciding vote to kill Democrat-backed bills.
Steyer’s moves in Washington have received more attention from media there and from activists and industry officials in Washington, D.C., than his activities in Oregon.
Oregon State Rep. Ben Unger, a Democrat from Hillsboro who runs the influential left-of-center political group Our Oregon, said the relationship between Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber and Steyer was not clear.
“I’ll admit — not sure how close Steyer is to the Kitzhaber administration,” he said in an email to the Examiner.
Dempsey said Kitzhaber, who is running for re-election, “has been much quieter” than Inslee, his counterpart to the north.
Still, Kitzhaber is no doubt an advocate of climate policies. He has publicly denounced a proposed coal export terminal in Oregon — the Department of State Lands denied the developer a needed permit for the project in August — and on Sunday he spoke at the Portland location for the People’s Climate March.
For Steyer, that makes the state, along with Washington, a natural fit.
“We care a lot about Washington and Oregon,” Steyer said. “We think those are both states where the majority of people agree with us.”
