‘Trying to help consumers by hiding information’: Climate Commitment Act costs will now show up on PSE natural gas bills

After the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) previously blocked Puget Sound Energy from listing Climate Commitment Act costs as a separate line item on customer bills, arguing it would be too confusing, the commission reversed course last winter, and the charges will now appear on natural gas bills as their own line item.

Todd Myers, vice president for research at the Washington Policy Center, discussed the reversal and what led to it on “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio.

“Your Puget Sound Energy natural gas bill went up, and they wanted to hide the fact that the Climate Commitment Act, the CO2 tax, was causing it to go up,” he said. “The irony was they said, ‘Oh, if you add that line item, it would be too confusing,’ but then literally in the next line they said, ‘But you have to add the line about state-funded rebates, because that’s important information.’ That wasn’t confusing to add. Just the fact that it added a cost, that was too confusing.”

Myers said the decision to hide the costs from customer bills was “one of the most outrageous things” he had ever seen.

“They actually said that they were trying to help consumers by hiding information from them, obviously political, obviously ridiculous,” he added.

New UTC commissioners reverse decision to hide Climate Commitment Act costs

Myers explained that after Washington Governor Bob Ferguson took office, he appointed new commissioners to the UTC. Myers sent a letter to the new commissioners last year arguing that the decision to hide costs was not only ethically wrong but was also creating practical problems for the state, because agencies themselves could not determine how much the Climate Commitment Act was adding to their bills.

The UTC reversed the decision last December, and as of June, Puget Sound Energy natural gas customers can now see the Climate Commitment Act charges broken out as their own line item on their bills.

“Now people can decide whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but at least they have the information,” Myers said.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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