Three Major Lies About the Climate Commitment Act

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]Recently, I was looking at some of the promises supporters of the state CO2 tax, known as the Climate Commitment Act or CCA, made two years ago when the issue was on the ballot. Looking back at old promises is critical if we're going to hold legislators accountable for their decisions and for the harm being done by their policies.

[00:00:21]It is also a useful reminder the next time these politicians make promises they know they won't keep. So, for example, in an editorial board meeting with the Seattle Times, uh, where I argued that the CO2 tax should be repealed about a year and a half ago, state representative Joe Fitzgibbon, one of the authors of the CCA, made several promises about that law in the hopes that Times editors would endorse keeping it. Now, it is just a year and a half later, and many of those same promises have been broken. In fact, in several instances, Fitzgibbon didn't merely break his promise. He did exactly the opposite of what he promised. And here are just a few examples. First, the original law promised to exempt fuel used to transport agricultural products from the CO2 tax. Instead, the Department of Ecology refused to enforce that provision. And when Fitzgibbon was asked about it in the editorial board, he said, "We intend to exempt that class of fuel from the CCA. that doesn't fully solve the problem. We're going to have to do more heavyduty work. He said it is at the top of the list of things that we know are not working. It is something we hear from farmers and it needs to be fixed and it will absolutely be prioritizing making it better. But instead of strengthening it, he actually tried to kill that provision this year.

[00:01:43]a bill that he wrote would have eliminated the exemption entirely, making farmers pay the tax. Instead of prioritizing its removal as he promised, his priority was making it even more costly for farmers. Now, fortunately, a bipartisan group of legislators overrode his proposal.

[00:02:01]Second, Joe was asked in that editorial board meeting about the very high cost of the CO2 tax and what he would do to reduce its impact on families. and he told the editorial board, "If prices are where they were last December when they were $52 per metric ton, I think that calls for a stronger set of remedies."

[00:02:18]Well, today the price is $65, nearly 30% higher than the price Joe said would require a stronger set of remedies. What has he done to reduce costs? Nothing. In fact, he passed a law this year that cracks down on a loophole that allowed some fuel sellers to avoid the tax. that will drive prices even higher than they are today. Now, Fitzgibbon and other supporters of the CO2 tax say that all the revenue helps fight climate change.

[00:02:46]In the editorial board, he was asked how we can be sure that the money being spent is actually effective and helps the environment. So when he was asked if the state should track the impact of spending, he said, quote, "Do I think that it would be useful for us to have a really sophisticated tracking mechanism by which we can look at every instrument made through the CCA and what the CO2 benefit of that is both in the short term and the long term. Yeah, I think that would be great." But once again, just a year and a half later, Fitzgibbon has done the exact opposite of what he said. Instead of supporting a sophisticated tracking mechanism, Fitzgiven wrote a law this year that actually reduced the tracking done by the state. Instead of releasing a report every year showing how the money was spent, he changed it to every other year. So the data will be outofdate and less useful by the time it's reported.

[00:03:43]This report is the exact one the departments of ecology and commerce had to revise because their math about the CO2 reduction was so badly inaccurate.

[00:03:52]as we pointed out and showed that government spending on climate projects was 140 times as expensive as private sector carbon reduction projects. When asked about the state was spending money, Fitzgib said in that interview, "We allocate these resources in way that are prescribed by law and are all geared toward reducing emissions." But the state's own reports show that's not true at all. So instead of creating a sophisticated tracking mechanism as Fitzgibbon claimed he wanted when he wanted the Seattle Times to support him, he weakened the state's tracking. Now in the editorial board meeting, Fitzgiven also insisted when we see the greenhouse gas inventories in 2023 and 2024, we will see a reduction. I am absolutely confident that we will see a reduction in emissions. Well, we now have partial data for those years that cover about 95% of estimated emissions and the results are extremely poor. Between 222 and 2023, the first year of the CCA reported emissions decline by less than 2% and in 2024 by less than 1/ half of 1%. Washington residents paid 810 million in CO2 taxes in 2024 and that yielded a reduction of less than 1/ half of 1% of CO2 emissions. That is incredibly ineffective. To meet the state's 2030 goal, we must reduce emissions by the equivalent of three COVID level reductions in just six years. That's not going to happen.

[00:05:23]Fitzgibbon routinely makes promises that he not only ignores, but actually does the exact opposite. And it is just the latest example of the chasm between what Washington state politicians promise and what they deliver when it comes to our state's wasteful and ineffective climate policy. If you found this informative, share it with a friend and consider checking out one of our suggested videos over here. Make sure you're subscribed so that you can stay up to date with the latest policy news from