Harger: WA has third-highest gas prices in nation. Now state admits climate program data was off by 96x.

It takes a lot to shock me anymore.

I’ve covered Washington government for years. I understand rounding errors. I get that numbers shift, estimates change, projections don’t always pan out. That’s bureaucracy. That’s life.

And then the Department of Commerce dropped a bombshell.

Washington drivers are paying billions more at the pump. For what, exactly?

Right now, the national average for gas is $2.82 a gallon. Idaho is $2.80. Oregon is $3.39. Washington? We’re at $3.82 statewide. In Seattle, it’s $4.12.

We have the third-highest gas prices in the entire country. Washington families have paid billions more at the pump since the Climate Commitment Act (CCA) took effect. Before the CCA, Seattle and Portland gas prices were basically the same. Now we’re paying more than 40 cents a gallon more than Oregon.

We were told this sacrifice would deliver meaningful emissions reductions. We were told the costs would be pennies.

And on Tuesday, the Department of Commerce quietly admitted they have no idea if any of it is working.

Washington admits Climate Commitment Act data was inflated by 96 times

The Department of Commerce released a statement Tuesday afternoon admitting they made a “data entry error” in reporting the emissions reductions from eight Climate Commitment Act projects. These are home electrification and appliance rebate programs for low-income communities.

Here’s what they originally reported: 7.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions reduced.

Here’s the actual number: 78,000 tons.

They were off by a factor of 96. Not a rounding error. Not a decimal point in the wrong place. They overstated the impact of these programs by nearly 100 times.

We’re paying among the highest gas prices in the nation, and one agency just acknowledged they inflated the results of its flagship projects by 96 times. That’s stunning.

Why wouldn’t Washington release climate program data?

For months, we’ve been asking a simple question: where’s the proof the Climate Commitment Act is actually working? The Department of Ecology kept saying it would release emissions data eventually. Next year. Soon. In the coming weeks. Always later.

This doesn’t provide much reassurance.

This isn’t just eight projects at one agency. Ecology said it’s now conducting a full review of all the data submitted for the CCA. That’s more than 3,600 projects across 37 agencies. If Commerce was off by a factor of 96, what about the rest of them? What else might be wrong?

Despite repeated requests from several media outlets, Ecology continues to say it won’t release the full data yet.

We all want clean air. But the math has to add up.

Let’s be clear: climate change is real. Global carbon emissions need to come down. We all want cleaner air. We all want a livable planet for our kids and grandkids.

And if the CCA could be shown to actually reduce carbon emissions in a meaningful way, maybe the sacrifice at the pump would be worth it. Maybe Washington families could accept paying the third-highest gas prices in the nation if they knew it was making a real difference.

But here’s the challenge. Washington produces less than two-tenths of one percent of all global emissions. We could ban cars tomorrow, and the planet wouldn’t notice.

China opens a new coal plant just about every week. Just one of those plants produces more carbon than Washington hopes to save in an entire year with the CCA. All those billions we’ve paid at the pump? Erased. Climate change isn’t solved by one medium-sized state sacrificing alone. It takes the whole world.

So the math was already difficult to justify. And now? Now we find out the state can’t even accurately measure whether its own program is doing anything at all.

Department of Commerce pivots to talking points while admitting 96x climate data error

Even in this correction, Commerce pivoted quickly to talking points.

The release says CCA funding “lays a foundation for a clean economy” and “increases equity.” In the same press release where they admitted they overstated emissions reductions by 7.4 million tons.

Commerce called the CCA “a vital part of the state’s efforts to control carbon emissions” and said the agency is “committed to ensuring that the information we share is complete and accurate.”

That’s a reasonable goal. But it’s hard to square with numbers that were wrong by a factor of 96.

Ecology said “accurate data is essential to guiding our state’s work to reduce carbon pollution” and promised to update processes “so this doesn’t happen again.”

Fair enough. But it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. And now the question becomes: can we trust that the other 3,600 projects are accurately reported?

Gov. Ferguson, Legislature must answer for Climate Commitment Act data failures

This demands answers. Not talking points. Answers.

Washington Governor Bob Ferguson inherited this program, but it’s his now. He needs to hold his leaders accountable. The Department of Commerce needs to explain how an error this massive happened. The Department of Ecology needs to explain why it took this long to catch it. And the Legislature, which appropriated $1.5 billion in CCA funds, needs to ask some hard questions about what they actually bought.

KIRO Newsradio will be filing public disclosure requests. We’ll be tracking what these agencies say publicly and privately. And when Ecology releases their corrected report “in the coming weeks,” we’ll be here to tell you what’s in it.

Is Washington’s Climate Commitment Act actually working? The state can’t prove it.

Washington families deserve to know: Is the Climate Commitment Act actually reducing emissions? Or are we paying the third-highest gas prices in the nation for a program that can’t prove it’s working?

We don’t know the answer yet. But we intend to find out.

Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here. 

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