Fossil fuel money crushed clean energy ballot initiatives
...the lesson of this year’s energy initiatives is pretty clear: When big oil wants to, it can spend unlimited amounts of money and crush efforts at direct democracy.
And it wants to. Where it chose to spend — notably, on 1631 in Washington and 112 in Colorado — it won.
As I said in this piece, this rather puts the lie to the notion that oil and gas companies plan to be productive partners in the climate fight. They can and will fight it at the grassroots level.
More broadly, ballot initiatives, like US politics generally, are becoming a battle of billionaires. Big money flows in virtually unrestricted. And it is effective.
Decamping from the federal level to the states is not going to allow clean energy proponents to escape that dynamic.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/11/7/18069940/election-results-2018-energy-carbon-fracking-ballot-initiatives