Environmental Ballot Wins

The “blue tsunami” on Tuesday that will give Democrats control of Congress also helped to push through ballot measures around the country to strengthen environmental protections. Voters approved referendums to ensure supplies of clean water and clean power, to support nature conservation and to armor communities against the threats of climate change-fueled wildfires. And they voted, over and over, to block data centers, too. In many contests, there was little explicit emphasis on climate change or the environment by the candidates, who focused more on affordability, said Jordan Haedtler, the climate finance policy lead at Climate Cabinet, a nonprofit group focused on state and local environmental issues.

But a number of states gave people the chance to protect the environment and make communities more resilient to climate change, he said. “Voters respond to that,” Haedtler said. In Colorado, voters were asked to take on the culture-war battle over gas stoves with a proposed amendment to the State Constitution to enshrine the right to cook with natural gas. It fell well short of passing . The votes are still being counted, but Californians appear likely to reject an overhaul of the state’s environmental review process.

It would have sped up development to make housing more affordable, but there were concerns that it also could have weakened ecological safeguards. Massachusetts approved devoting a share of sales taxes to a new fund to expand land conservation and build parks, especially in underserved areas. Corpus Christi, Texas, faced the prospect of a water crisis this year , before rain alleviated a severe shortage in the city’s reservoirs. In response, voters overwhelmingly backed a measure to require heavy industrial water users to pay mandatory drought surcharges.

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