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

It takes a lot to shock me anymore.

I’ve covered the 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.

What the state quietly admitted Tuesday afternoon is different.

WA 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 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 in 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.

WA 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 one hundred times.

We’re paying among the highest gas prices in the nation, and the agency responsible for proving the program works just admitted they inflated the results of their flagship projects by 96 times. That’s stunning.

Ecology Director Casey Sixkiller praised the CCA report. Then the numbers collapsed.

Here’s what makes this worse: the state didn’t just quietly report these numbers. They celebrated them.

When the Department of Ecology released its “Climate Commitment Act Investments” report, the agency’s press release claimed CCA investments “are expected to directly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a total of nearly 9 million metric tons.” That’s the “equivalent of taking 40% of all gas and diesel vehicles in Washington off the road for a whole year,” Ecology boasted.

Ecology Director Casey Sixkiller praised the report for providing “detailed, transparent information about CCA spending” which “ensures that lawmakers can continue to guide those investments wisely.”

Detailed. Transparent. Wise.

And it turns out 86% of those claimed emissions reductions came from just eight projects that were off by a factor of 96.

Washington Policy Center flagged Climate Commitment Act data error. The state ignored it.

Todd Myers, environmental director at The Washington Policy Center, spotted the problem almost immediately.

Myers noted that Ecology claimed the average cost to reduce one metric ton of CO2 was just $40. That’s remarkably low, particularly when the average cost during the first year of climate projects was over $1,400 per metric ton. A drop to $40 would be extraordinary if it were true.

It wasn’t.

Myers dug into the data and found eight projects claiming to reduce emissions for just $1 to $4 per metric ton. As he put it: “There are probably no projects in the world that can reduce CO2 emissions for that price.”

One example tells the story. The City of Ellensburg received a grant for about $4.1 million to fund heat pump installations for low-income families. Twenty percent went to administrative costs and “outreach and education.” The remaining $3.5 million funded 170 projects.

According to the state’s report, those 170 heat pump installations reduced emissions by 3.5 million metric tons. To put that in context, Myers noted, that’s equivalent to 60 percent of all energy-related residential CO2 emissions in Washington for all of 2023.

From 170 buildings.

Obviously wrong. But Ecology published it anyway. Director Sixkiller praised it anyway.

When Myers pressed the Department of Commerce for an explanation, they admitted: “There was an error in the reported data. Ecology is aware of the issue.”

Now, finally, they’ve acknowledged it publicly.

Why wouldn’t Washington release CCA emissions data? Now we may know

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

Was this the reason?

This isn’t just eight projects at one agency. Ecology said they’re 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?

And here’s another number worth knowing: according to Myers’ analysis, about 70% of CCA project spending isn’t even expected to reduce CO2 emissions at all. The $16 million for “bicycle education to elementary and middle school students,” for example, reports zero expected emissions reductions.

So we’re left with a program where 70% of spending isn’t designed to cut emissions, and the 30% that is supposed to cut emissions is being measured with data that’s off by a factor of 96.

Does WA’s Climate Commitment Act actually reduce emissions? The math doesn’t 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 Climate Commitment Act 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 accounts for less than 0.2% of 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.

WA Department of Commerce spins Climate Commitment Act even while admitting 96x error

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

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

Commerce called the Climate Commitment Act “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?

Governor Ferguson, Legislature must answer for Climate Commitment Act data failures

This demands answers. Not talking points. Answers.

Governor Ferguson inherited this program, but it’s his now. 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 WA’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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