Where is your CO2 tax really going? Policy expert slams state’s ‘ineffective’ spending

That extra 40 cents at the gas tank for the CO2 tax feeds into the Climate Commitment Act—but where does it really go?

Washington Policy Center’s Todd Myers has been combing through the newly adopted budget for 2025-2027 and told “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio Wednesday that none of the money is being used effectively.

“What you see is a lot of government expansion, a lot of programs to spend more on government,” he said. “So one of my favorites is that there’s $4 million to address flooding in the Nooksack, which is in Whatcom County. All $4 million of it goes to more staff and planning. None of it actually goes into the ground to do things that stop flooding. It’s all planning and government expenditures.”

Myers also highlighted Washington’s goal to create hydrogen-powered cars, but the state is also spending $400,000 to study the harms of hydrogen fueling.

“They take the money out of our pocket, and they stick it in someone else’s pocket, and then that guy takes the money and puts it in his other pocket,” John Curley, host of “John Curley,” said. “This money is just circulating around, just going around. As it goes around. Government gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and our emissions continue to increase.”

Using CO2 tax for important projects versus ‘silly stuff’

Myers said that while there are projects he can get behind, such as new buildings at college campuses, there is also “a lot of silly stuff.”

“There’s $5 million in there, and it’s only listed as industrial symbiosis. So I called the Office of Financial Management, and I said, ‘What is industrial symbiosis?’ And their answer was, ‘We don’t know either. That was put in by the legislature. We’re trying to find out,'” he shared.

Overall, Myers believes the money is being spent ineffectively.

“This is the fundamental problem. Is that if you’re using somebody else’s money, right? Your own personal goals get mixed in with the purpose of the expenditures. So yes, we want to spend this money to reduce CO2, but if I can also make a political supporter happy, let’s do that as well, right? Whereas, if the money is your own, you’re going to spend it in such a way that it’s going to maximize the benefit,” he said.

Policy expert points out counterproductive spending with gas tax

Myers said the same situation is happening with the gas tax.

“I think a lot of people would say, ‘Yes, we need to fix our roads. We need to build roads and maintain them.’ The problem is that Washington has the third-highest gas tax in the country, but a recent study found that we are 47th in the country in terms of road maintenance and road quality, and efficiency of spending that money. So we spend a huge amount of money, but we don’t get the results.”

Listen to the full conversation below.

Listen to John Curley every weekday afternoon from 3 – 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

Follow @https://twitter.com/jcurleyshow