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OLYMPIA–This Earth Day, I am reminded of the words of a judge’s decision regarding Seattle City Light’s claim that it is the “nation’s greenest utility.” After finding the utility wasn’t living up to its environmental promises, the judge admitted the claim was “mere puffery.” It could be said about so much of today’s environmental rhetoric. Washington’s governor Jay Inslee claims the state is a leader in cutting CO2 emissions. In fact, CO2 emissions have increased every year he has been in o...
As Washington’s CO2 tax, known as the Climate Commitment Act, heads to the ballot this fall, this logo highlighting projects that received funding from that tax will become more prevalent. And you are paying for it. The use of taxpayer-resources to promote the CO2 tax follows the decision by the legislature to send one-time checks of $200 to utility customers funded by the Climate Commitment Act just two-months before the November election. It is part of a pattern we are likely to see a...
What happens when cold temperatures move across the Northwest, there is less natural gas power available, and wind disappears? We found out on Saturday, as Puget Sound Energy (PSE) had to ask customers to conserve to keep the grid stable. It is a case study of the need to ensure Washington has energy sources that can be turned on when needed, and of the need to empower consumers by making energy prices transparent. As temperatures plummeted across Washington state on January 13, PSE sent a...
Washington's new tax on CO2 emissions ended up adding about 43 cents per gallon of gas for 2023. The final price was reduced by several market interventions by Department of Ecology staff, but prices are likely to increase next year. Ecology staff released the results from the fourth-quarter auction of CO2 emission allowances. The settlement price was $51.89, a significant drop from the previous auction price of $63.03. The average tax on CO2 in 2023 ended up at $54.74 per metric ton, which...
OLYMPIA–The state held its special auction for CO2 allowances last week. When the results were announced, they indicated that higher gas prices may be coming. As part of the state's new tax on CO2 emissions, known as the Climate Commitment Act, organizations that emit CO2, like BP or Washington State University, must purchase permits for every metric ton (MT) of CO2 emitted by their operations or products. There are a limited number of permits available, so the price is set at an auction. Regula...
SEATTLE–Proposals to remove the four Lower Snake River (LSR) dams: Ice Harbor, Little Goose, Lower Granite, and Lower Monumental, to aid in salmon recovery efforts would transform Washington from a state with some of the lowest electricity prices in the country to a state with much higher costs. These proposals received a boost when Washington's Governor Jay Inslee and U.S. Senator Patty Murray released their joint recommendations stating that salmon and other species in Washington state face a...
Washington State Attorney Bob Ferguson recently announced he opposes the expansion of a natural gas pipeline in Washington state, claiming “This pipeline is bad for the environment and bad for consumers.” He is asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reject the energy project. A look at the math of his claims demonstrates, however, that the expansion of the pipeline would have no impact on total greenhouse gas emissions in Washington state. His effort to block the expansion would not...
Todd Myers, Environmental Director at the Washington Policy Center and member of the Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Council, released this statement regarding the release of the governor's report on the Snake River dams. "The governor's report on the Snake River dams ignores the consensus science on salmon and the Snake River dams, and puts politics before true salmon recovery efforts. Destroying the dams would divert funding from salmon runs at greater risk, would not help Southern Resident...
OLYMPIA–For just the cost of flying himself and his wife to Scotland in business class, Governor Inslee could have eliminated the CO2 emissions from his entire staff for more than one year. If you include the cost of support staff and security, he could have eliminated all staff CO2 emissions for almost all of his first two terms in office. According to The Center Square, the Washington State Office of Financial Management disclosed that taxpayers paid $12,510.08 to fly the Governor and his wife...
failing to come close to meeting their own COVID-19 contact tracing targets, the State Epidemiologist is “proud of the state” for the program. On the other hand, he knows who is to blame for the state’s inability to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and meet its own goals: everyone else. Having consistently failed to come close to meeting the self-imposed targets, the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) announced that its COVID-19 Case Investigation and Contact Tracing is takin...
Washington's wolf population saw another significant increase, growing by 16 percent in 2021 according to the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). The number of packs grew to 33 from 29 in 2020, and the number of breeding pairs increased from 16 to 19. The consistent growth of the wolf population is good news and is the result of hard work of WDFW staff, the Wolf Advisory Group, and the ranchers in NE Washington who have taken steps to reduce wolf attacks. These good numbers...
Over the next eight years, Washington residents face critical changes in how we generate and use electricity. Additionally, salmon populations are not recovering as fast as we would like and the factors contributing to fish death rates are complex. Successfully addressing those problems will require improved research and data. What environmental information does the governor think the legislature should have to tackle these issues? His veto of several studies and support for another demonstrate...
Recently, a group of high school students asked the Sammamish City Council to adopt a resolution calling for the destruction of the Snake River Dams. Here is the letter I sent to the councilmembers and the students outlining some of the problems with the information in a PowerPoint provided to the students by anti-dam activists. Since this addresses many of the current arguments being made by those who want to destroy the dams, I thought I would share my letter. I was very gratified to have a...
If the state legislature adopts both a CO2 cap-and-trade system and a low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS)–as the budget proposed by State Senate Democrats indicates–it would add about 20 cents to the cost of a gallon of gas in 2023. That would increase to between 41 and 50 cents per gallon, using current projections, in 2028. For diesel, those numbers are even higher. Those are on top of one of the highest state gas taxes in the country. The LCFS and cap-and-trade are included in the State Sen...
After a snowy December, Washington's snowpack will end the year at 106% of normal. April 1 is the traditional end of the snowpack year, so there are still three more months to get the final numbers. If this trend holds, it would be the 14th time in the last 17 years that snowpack was above normal. Additionally, the snowpack is even better than those numbers indicate. The definition of "normal" changes every decade. Last year, the definition covered the years from 1981-2010. That changed this...
Contrary to recent claims that Snake River Spring Chinook runs are on the path to extinction, returns increased for the second year in a row, continuing the recovery from the recent low point in the population cycle. The Spring Chinook salmon run for the Snake River concluded yesterday, with 29,634 salmon passing the Lower Granite Dam. This is a 27 percent increase from 2020 levels and 55 percent larger than 2019 returns. That number is also only 495 Chinook short of the 2020 Spring and Summer r...
The poor are oppressed by the incompetent. It is a phrase that increasingly rings in my ears as I watch government bureaucracies and politicians provide false hope instead of tangible assistance. The people who pay for these failures are often those who can least afford it. The examples in my home state of Washington are numerous, but are not unique. My friend Kim Ngan came to the United States from Vietnam, and although she didn’t speak much English, she knew there was opportunity. Today she o...
The problem with relying on government is that you can’t rely on it. Eight months after the governor announced the first strict lockdown in his effort to contain the spread of COVID, he has announced very similar restrictions in response to a rapid increase in cases and hospitalizations. The severity of the restrictions is not only a problem for businesses and workers who are again facing difficult times. It shows that the state has learned very little in the past eight months about what c...
Smoke from forest fires filled the air in [Western] Washington and immediately the finger of blame was pointed at climate change. Prior to the recent fires, the 2020 fire season had been extremely quiet. No matter how the season ends, however, blaming climate change is politics, not science. Not all the lands burned in the last week are forests, but forestland is a major source of the smoke we are seeing. The science is quite clear that timber harvests–including commercial timber harvests – are...
King County recently released its 2020 Climate Action Plan. Already, county public relations staff have been busy touting the "accomplishments" of the last climate plan. One thing they don't mention, however, is that the county is on track to miss its self-imposed 2020 CO2 reduction target by 96 percent. You won't see that anywhere in the long press release from County Executive Dow Constantine. Instead, he claims the county "surpassed many of our goals." Touting procedural successes while...
"There is little sign of recovery of Puget Sound Chinook populations in each biogeographic region, and most populations remain far below their recovery planning targets." –Puget Sound Partnership, 2020 After more than two decades of effort, salmon recovery in Puget Sound continues to fall far short of promised targets. The result is that Chinook salmon are not close to being removed from the Endangered Species List and the population of Southern Resident Killer Whales continues to decline d...