Early Microsoft money defends the Climate Commitment Act

Plus Saldaña bows out of Lands Commissioner race, and Senate Democrats invest in defending Cleveland

Billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates wrote a $1 million check last month to the campaign against the ballot initiative to repeal the state’s cap-and-trade system for major emitters of carbon pollution. 

Gates is a prominent activist on climate change. His infusion helped the No On 2117 campaign raise nearly $2.3M in March, bringing it to $4.4M thus far. 

There’s other early Microsoft money in the committee’s coffers as well, including $500,000 from the Far Star Action Fund, which is filmmaker/philanthropists David and Linda Cornfield, and $250K from Jabe Blumenthal, who designed the first version of Excel before calling in rich¹ to teach high school math and physics and become a major figure in PNW environmentalist circles.

Seattle Kraken co-owner Samantha Holloway, who made some bank elsewhere in tech, was also in for $250K.

Here’s why you should care about this: The campaign against repealing the Climate Commitment Act is likely to swell into eight figures before Election Day. The system is extracting billions from the fossil-fuel-heavy sectors of the economy and figures to reshape markets for transportation fuels. That money is getting plowed into a broad variety of green energy and transportation projects, and plenty of folks see money to be made there.