For immediate release
August 26, 2021
Media contacts:
Maggie Gates, Protect Spokane Action, mgates@landscouncil.org, 509-838-4912
Stephanie Noren, Climate Solutions, stephanie.noren@climatesolutions.org, 360-580-7885
Knoll Lowney, Smith & Lowney (legal), knoll@smithandlowney.com, 206-650-1044
BREAKING NEWS:
Spokane says yes to clean energy as Prop 1 ruled invalid in Spokane Superior Court
Community to retain local control of future commercial building decisions
Spokane, WA - Today Spokane County Superior Court Judge Bjelkengren ruled that Spokane Prop 1 was beyond the scope of the local initiative process and enjoined it from heading to the ballot. The measure sought to permanently prohibit the City from restricting gas-use in new construction, which is considered critical to meeting climate change targets established in State law and the Spokane code.
The Court ruled that Prop 1 was invalid because it addressed administrative matters. Specifically, the City had already adopted its climate change policy and Prop 1 tried to interfere with the implementation of this policy, which is considered administrative and outside of the local initiative process. The court also said that the measure would interfere with the City Council's statutory authority to enact local building codes.
Knoll Lowney, one of the attorneys for Plaintiffs, said, "This initiative was clearly impermissible and the Court made the right decision in striking it from the ballot."
Amanda Parrish with the Protect Spokane Action coalition said, “We are thrilled with the judge’s well-founded decision to uphold the process allowing the community-led Sustainability Action Plan to continue and to remove the intentionally misleading Prop 1 from ballots this fall. Our community deserves the opportunity to choose cleaner and healthier buildings in the future.”
Prop 1 was filed and written in direct response to Spokane’s draft sustainability action plan, which included a focus on building electrification and updating the city’s commercial building codes. The initiative, known as a preemption bill, is part of a national strategy backed and funded by the fossil fuel industry to eliminate communities’ local control over health, safety, climate and energy issues. The American Gas Association—which is funded largely by ratepayers through its member utilities—is actively involved in pushing preemption bills around the nation, according to documents and recordings obtained by the Climate Investigation Center. The gas industry is also known to be fighting building electrification policies and climate action across the country. In the Northwest, the fossil fuel industry funded front group Partnership for Energy Progress has been actively using its millions of dollars to claim methane gas use as “safe,” “natural,” and “climate-friendly.”