Utah Carbon Tax Initiative (2020)

Utah Carbon Tax Initiative
Election date November 3, 2020
Topic Taxes and Environment
Status Not on the ballot
Type State statute	Origin Citizens
List of Utah measuresUtah Constitutional Amendment AUtah Constitutional Amendment BUtah Constitutional Amendment CUtah Constitutional Amendment DUtah Constitutional Amendment EUtah Constitutional Amendment FUtah Constitutional Amendment GSubmit

The Utah Carbon Tax Initiative was not on the ballot in Utah as an initiated state statute on November 3, 2020.

This initiative would have established a carbon tax and eliminate the state sales tax on food and residential and commercial fuel.

Text of measure

The full text of the initiative can be found here.

Support

Clean the Darn Air led the campaign in support of the initiative.

Arguments

Clean the Darn Air said the ballot measure was "a modest carbon tax, with approximately one-third of the revenue going to clean up local air pollution and fund rural economic development and two-thirds of the revenue going to reduce existing taxes, including eliminating the state sales tax on grocery store food."

Opposition

If you are aware of any opponents or opposing arguments that should be included here, please send an email with a link to editor@ballotpedia.org.

Path to the ballot

See also: Laws governing the initiative process in Utah

The state process

In Utah, the number of signatures required to qualify an initiated state statute for the ballot is equal to 8 percent of the number of active voters as of January 1 of the year following the last regular general election. Petition circulation must be distributed so that signature equal to 8 percent of the active voters are collected from each of at least 26 of the 29 Utah State Senate districts. State law establishes a final signature deadline for direct initiated state statutes as either 316 days after the initial initiative application was filed or February 15 of the election year, whichever is earlier. Moreover, signature petition sheet packets for direct initiatives must be submitted to county clerks on a rolling basis no more than 30 days after the first signature is added to the packet.

The requirements to get an initiated state statute certified for the 2020 ballot:

• Signatures: 115,869 valid signatures were required.
• Deadline: The deadline to submit signatures was February 18, 2020. Each initiative also has an initiative-specific deadline 316 days following the initial application.

Each signature is verified by the county clerks in the county where the signature was collected. After verification, the petition forms are delivered to the lieutenant governor, who counts the total number of certified signatures and declares the petition as either sufficient or insufficient.

Details about this initiative

• This initiative was filed on April 8, 2019.
• On May 6, 2019, the Utah Governor’s Office of Management and Budget published its fiscal estimate for this initiative.
• On November 22, 2019, sponsors announced that instead of continuing to target the 2020 ballot, they would try to get a similar measure on the ballot in 2022 or 2024. Clean the Darn Air wrote, "We have not been able to get a major donation or other game-changing development, so although we are still gathering some signatures in 'experimental mode', we are doing so mostly with an eye on future years because the odds of getting on the 2020 ballot are very long and are getting longer by the day."
• Sponsors of the initiative had collected 27,651 valid signatures.

See also

2020 measures

• 2020 ballot measures
• Taxes on the ballot
• Environment on the ballot
• 2020 petition deadlines

Utah

• Utah ballot measures
• Utah initiative laws

News and analysis

• Ballot measure lawsuits
• Ballot measure readability
• Ballot measure polls
• Ballot measure signature costs

External links

• Utah 2020 Initiative Filings
• Initiative application and full text
• Utah Governor’s Office of Management and Budget' fiscal impact statement