‘The numbers are basically nonsense’: Todd Myers challenges WA’s climate spending claims

Washington released an update this week on its cap-and-trade tax on fossil fuels, which hit an all-time high of more than $70 per metric ton and could add roughly 56 cents per gallon of gas.

Todd Myers, vice president of research at the Washington Policy Center, noted that Washington’s CO2 tax is now higher than its gas tax and has increased 75% over the past year. Speaking on “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio, Myers questioned whether any of the state’s climate initiatives are making a real impact.

“Washington is very honest about where [the money] is going. The question is whether it’s doing anything,” Myers said. “They released a report showing all the places it went, and they’re like, ‘Oh, we have good news. It’s actually having an impact on reducing C02 emissions.’ I looked at the numbers and immediately said, ‘That is not accurate.’ So I dug in and found that the numbers are basically nonsense.”

Myers noted that the average car in WA emits approximately four metric tons of CO2 per year, and questioned an Ellensburg project that claimed a $4 million investment could offset the CO2-equivalent of nearly one million cars for a year, a figure Myers called “obviously wrong.”

“The project may be fine, but I guarantee it’s not reducing the CO2 of over a million cars for a year,” Myers said. “I said, ‘Where did you get this number?’ and they’re like, ‘We didn’t create that number, the state created it.’ I’ve asked the state where they got that number, and they haven’t responded.”

Myers, citing his research with the Washington Policy Center, pointed to a multimillion-dollar project aimed at reducing flooding along the Nooksack River in Whatcom County, claiming that none of the $4 million went toward actual changes, instead funding government hires. Myers predicted the current flooding across WA will be used to justify more climate spending, even though previous funds have gone toward “people, not projects.”

“Many of the projects are frustrating. We’re dealing with floods right now. One of the things that I’ve been banging on, and we spend money on floodplains and things like that, but one of the things is that we’ve spent millions of dollars on a project to reduce flooding in the Nooksack in Whatcom County, and all the money goes to hiring more government,” Myers said. “None of that $4 million actually goes to making changes on the ground to reduce flooding.

“Now, what you’re going to see, I guarantee, what you’re going to hear over the next week is, ‘this flood is caused by climate change. This is why we need to spend the money.’ But you have been spending money from the climate account on flooding, but you’ve been spending it on people, not projects,” Myers continued.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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