Harger: Your PSE bill went up 12% this year. They’re asking for 30% more. And Olympia is about to print the reason on it

I live in a house in the suburbs. We’ve got a hot tub, air conditioning, and an EV in the driveway. We’ve also got two teenagers who treat a light switch like modern art, something to admire on the wall but never actually touch.

So yes. We are power users. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

That’s why I noticed early. Sometime this winter, the electric bill started climbing, and not in the rounding-error way. I started asking around. Neighbors. Coworkers. Everybody’s Puget Sound Energy (PSE) bill is up.

Turns out we weren’t imagining it.

Puget Sound Energy raised rates about 12% this year and named the Climate Commitment Act as the driver

On January 1, a roughly 12% electric rate increase took effect for Puget Sound Energy customers. The state Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) approved it. For the average home, that’s about 17 bucks a month. Natural gas went up too, around 7%.

What makes this one different from your standard utility gripe: PSE told us why.

The company’s own spokesperson said the increases are driven in large part by the cost of complying with the Climate Commitment Act (CCA) on the gas side, as well as the cost of purchasing more renewable power and replacing coal under the Clean Energy Transformation Act. The UTC’s approval order says the same thing. The law is the driver. The utility isn’t hiding it.

And starting this month, you won’t have to take anyone’s word for it. The UTC has ordered PSE to break out the carbon cost as its own line on your bill, the “State Carbon Reduction Charge.” Olympia is about to print the receipt for you, right there next to the amount due.

The 30% rate increase PSE wants by 2029 is the part nobody’s bracing for

The 12% was the warm-up.

PSE has now gone back to the UTC, asking to raise electric rates by nearly 30% and gas rates by nearly 20% by 2029.

Thirty percent. On top of what already went up this year.

PSE says it wouldn’t be fair to pin the whole request on climate policy. But the company’s own numbers tell the story. PSE said about $4 billion of its $9 billion rate request is to comply with CETA’s renewable requirements. Nearly half the ask is for the mandate alone.

And the “new resources” line tells on itself. Wind and solar don’t show up on demand. The Washington Policy Center (WPC), citing a study this year from Energy and Environmental Economics, notes that per unit of energy, wind and solar run about 25% cheaper than natural gas, the number the governor likes to quote. But that’s not the number that keeps your lights on. Less than 10% of wind power can be counted on during winter peak, because the coldest days here can be dead still, with no wind anywhere. To cover that, utilities have to overbuild. Once you account for what you can actually rely on, WPC’s read of that study puts the effective cost of wind and solar at nearly four times that of natural gas.

Four times. And even if total demand never grew at all, the state still forces utilities to swap reliable gas for wind and solar, which they must overbuild to handle cold snaps. You pay more for the same electricity. Not because you used more. Because Olympia changed the rules.

This isn’t just a PSE problem, which is how you know it’s policy and not corporate greed. Seattle City Light, a public utility, raised rates this year and is now proposing back-to-back 9.5% increases in 2027 and 2028, citing new carbon-free generation and aging infrastructure. Avista in Spokane wants about 14% next year. Public, private, foreign-owned, city-owned. Same mandates, same direction. Up.

And don’t blame AI data centers, either.

“None of this growth is data-center driven,” PSE told WPC directly.

The utility’s own demand has been flat for a decade. The growth that exists is in EVs, home electrification, and clean energy mandates. PSE’s own words to the WPC, not mine.

Washington has collected nearly $4 billion from the Climate Commitment Act. The question is what you got for it

Since 2023, the Climate Commitment Act has pulled in nearly $4 billion. Ecology projects billions more by 2029.

Supporters will tell you it’s working. The Department of Ecology (DOE) said 61% of the spending went to overburdened communities and that the funded projects are expected to cut about 335,000 metric tons of carbon per year. That’s the pitch. You should hear it.

You should also know that the Commerce Department already admitted it overstated the emissions reductions from eight of its CCA-funded rebate projects by a factor of 96. They reported that those projects would cut 7.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. The real number was 78,000. After the correction, Commerce now credits all of its CCA programs, cutting about 308,000 tons. The single data-entry error was bigger than everything those programs are actually doing. That’s the agency doing the measuring. Take the 335,000-ton projection with whatever salt you’ve got left.

Then look at where a big chunk of the money lands. The Washington Policy Center went through the 2025-27 operating budget line by line. Of about $174 million in carbon-tax money in two climate accounts, they found that more than 70% went to growing government or to planning. Roughly $90 million to bureaucracy. About $30 million for planning. And just $15.8 million to actual on-the-ground projects.

Four billion in. Thirty percent to go. And your bill comes every month

So here’s where we are. Nearly $4 billion collected. Bills are up 12% this year, and another 30% is on the way.

And the best independent read on the money says most of it grew government rather than doing anything you can see, breathe, or point to.

Four billion in. Thirty percent to go.

Your bill comes every month. The receipt is about to tell you why. Read it.

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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