WA Senator: Suspend the Climate Commitment Act

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]Joining us now on the Gian Ursula show is state senator Chris Gilden, the Republican budget leader in the Senate and ranking member on Ways and Means.

[00:00:11]Good morning, Senator.

[00:00:13]>> Hey, good morning. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:14]>> Hey, thank you for joining us. So, you say it is time for Governor Bob Ferguson to roll back the Climate Commitment Act.

[00:00:20]Tell us about that.

[00:00:22]Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it's just a given fact that anyone understands by now that the Climate Commitment Act is adding cost to the gallon of gasoline.

[00:00:32]And it's far more reaching than that actually because everything it's not just your commute that it affects and the price you pay at the pump, but it's all of the cost of transport transporting goods uh to market.

[00:00:45]Everything moves on a truck. All of those prices are inflated for diesel.

[00:00:49]It's the cost of manufacturing. It trickles down to every part of your life and it is really important. You know, I was on an airplane ride coming back from a business trip earlier this week and I was sitting next to a elderly woman and she was coming back to Kent with her daughter and she confided in me that she had like $150 of disposable income at the end of each month. She was uh on a fixed income uh retirement plan. Uh this a dollar to the gallon of gasoline. I mean, that has a real impact on people just like her. And I hear those stories all too often.

[00:01:24]>> Senator, um, by the way, um, you're right. Well, I hear these stories all the time. Have for years. Um, and one of the things that you said, you you agree, I think we all can agree that everything in Washington is uniquely expensive.

[00:01:39]Gas, housing, child care. Okay. Of those three, Senator, I want to know which one do you believe is doing the most damage to famil family's budget and tell me which one of the three outside of the pause in the CCA that you are going the hardest on inside of the legislature.

[00:02:02]>> Yeah, I I mean I guess I would divide that up. I guess it depends on what phase you are in life. uh if you are a young family starting out and you have to put your kids in child care obviously that is a huge impact for you but at a later stage in your life it may be uh property taxes or it could be you know the gas or whatever it is so I think that question maybe depends on the phase of your life but I think Ursula said it very well at the beginning of the introduction uh when she said we can't control what goes on nationally right but we can control the things that are within our state Right.

[00:02:36]>> And one of the things that is inside of our state that we can control is the Climate Commitment Act. And we know that uh Governor Ferguson has the ability to through his emergency powers to go ahead and and put a pause on this. And I'm not saying pause it forever. I'm not saying stop it or I'm not saying, you know, put our environmental the betterment of our environment uh in peril. But you've got to balance affordability with all of these other goals, right? That's the responsible thing to do is to acknowledge that you have to balance it.

[00:03:08]We've got to provide affordability for our citizens and we've got to be good stewards of the environment as well.

[00:03:15]>> You are listening to state senator Chris Gilden. Uh if the governor suspended or repealed the CCA tomorrow, let's say realistically, how much cheaper could gas get?

[00:03:28]So, the experts down in Olympia have told me that within a matter of weeks, just a matter of a short couple of weeks, people would start feeling it in their uh pocketbooks, and it could be up towards 55 cents a gallon uh is what the impact could potentially be.

[00:03:43]>> Supporters of the CCA though, I want to point out, they they say that this money is funding transportation, fairies, wildfire prevention, and climate resilience projects. if you repeal it or suspend it and and I I heard you when you said it it doesn't necessarily mean forever but for right now. What gets cut or what impact would that have?

[00:04:04]>> I don't think it would have a huge impact. You know, I did an interview with Todd Meyers just the other day on this very topic from the Washington Policy Center and he's one of the leading experts in environmental policy in our state and I asked him that same question. I said, "How are the dollars from this climate commitment act actually being spent?" Ursula, I've got to tell you, you can dig into the budget and see it yourself. The vast majority of those dollars are being spent on work groups, meetings, uh things that don't actually have an impact on the environment. Uh I think we can do much better at uh being better spending those dollars better. The legislature just this last year additionally uh expanded a use for the climate commitment act and they're using it to fund the working families tax credit program which that's a a a good program. I I support that program but it's not helping the environment.

[00:05:02]>> You know, Senator, um I like how you you focused and prefaced that about the phases and I want to go back to the phases because that's important. You mentioned the phase about child care.

[00:05:13]Glad you brought that up because right now um child care right now is really costing some families. Would you agree with that?

[00:05:20]>> Absolutely.

[00:05:21]>> Yeah. Child care is is a big one. So when it comes to the child care, a lot of child care, some people are playing close to mortgage uh and rent when it comes to there. What is something that you specifically have been doing in the legislature to help get behind help and relief for child care in the state of Washington? Yeah, and this is where I'll throw a little bit of uh kudos over to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in the majority democrat party is just this last year they took actually an initiative uh that that we had started the year prior. Uh so the way things were g is if you were a child and you're attending daycare if you attended one day that provider got paid for the entire month of child care. Right? That seems a little bit uh strange to me. And I understand child care facilities, they need the predictability. They need to know how many people approximately are going to be coming in so they can hire staff and plan accordingly. Uh but it seems like attending one day and getting paid for the full month, that's a little excessive. So the legislature changed that this year. uh and they're saving about a billion dollars from the state budget uh to where that if the child attends I think it we ended up on 14 days then they get paid for the entire month and then uh anything less than that it's a day for day.

[00:06:44]>> Um I will agree that pausing the CCA would really have some relief for the people. I I I just want you to know that I agree with that. Outside of this pause, outside of the CCA, is there anything that you believe that would nice would be a good permanent fix here in this state that would help the working class in the state? You know, like the lady that you sat next to with $150, what would you what would you permanently fix?

[00:07:12]>> I would start off with accountability and performance measures on every bill that spends money in the legislature. uh we try to get those added on to all kinds of bills that spend money. What are your measures of performance? What are your measures of effectiveness? How do you gauge and when do you revisit the program to see if it's actually working?

[00:07:32]I think that's one of the very first things that we could do. We can also find ways to save a lot of taxpayer dollars right now. And I'll give you an example. The uh Democrat state auditor just about a year ago came out with a report on state Medicaid. and they said that there's about 130,000 people who are concurrently enrolled in Medicaid in Washington state and in another state, meaning both states are paying monthly premiums for those individuals. I think we can clean that up quite easily. I offered a bill on that. It didn't go anywhere this last year, but there's some real common sense things that we can do to structurally reform uh our state budgeting process, our spending process, and to make sure that every dollar has a name, a job, and it's being used effectively and efficiently.

[00:08:22]>> This is State Senator Chris Gilden, who is the Republican budget leader in the Senate, and uh you are proposing this suspension, at least uh for right now, of the CCA. What kind of response are you getting in Olympia or from colleagues?

[00:08:38]>> I just put Yeah, I just put out the proposal yesterday and so people are starting to get a hold of the news. I think you're the first uh interview that I've done and actually I heard your program where you were talking about this very thing just very recently and then whenever >> you know the CPI came out showing that the Seattle, Belleview, Tacoma area was inflation was so much higher in our areas than in the rest of the nation.

[00:09:03]and that gas was up I think 26% uh over the previous year just like I've got to do something right and I don't know if the governor is going to accept my proposal. I hope he accepts it in the good faith that it was offered uh and that you know he will take it seriously and not think that it's some type of a a partisan push or anything because it's not. It's I'm truly making an attempt to provide some relief for the people of our state. No, I I I I certainly hear that. And I want to um ask you, has the state become too dependent on CCA revenue to just walk away from it right now?

[00:09:40]>> It is a good amount of money. Um and but I tell you what, it's just not being spent wisely in my opinion. I mentioned it's going to provide work groups and study groups and to allow people to have meetings to talk about the climate, but very little of it is actually going to anything that touches the climate. Like I would be happy if they would do an incentive program for something like smart thermostats, right? That that will save energy all over for every household. Just little things like that, I think, would be much more effective uh and a better way of using those dollars.

[00:10:15]>> I have one last question, good brother.

[00:10:18]Let's just say the governor, let's say he says no to this.

[00:10:24]>> Then what's your next move to help others get relief?

[00:10:29]>> Well, I keep plugging along, you know, every time that I find some way and I'm able to to try to affect our state policy, our state government, and and affordability. And like I said, those measures of effectiveness, measures of performance, we do it. You know, just uh a year ago, the legislature was facing a huge budget shortfall. Um and in response to that, I started off on a little project just to see if I could balance the budget uh without cutting services, without increasing taxes, and still bridge that seven half billion dollar budget shortfall. And I didn't know if I was going to be able to do it.

[00:11:04]And I told staff that I wouldn't do it unless I could do it with a straight face and with all all honesty. And in the end, we actually did provide a budget that was fully balanced, that didn't have any tax increases, that didn't have any cuts to services. We called it the Save Washington budget.

[00:11:22]You can go look it up. The S is the money sign. So, that's kind of fun. But, um, you know, so if you get in there and you dig into it and you really want to do some of those structural reforms like I was talking about with the pay payments to the child care providers, uh, you can find ways to save. Even Governor Gregoire has recently come out saying that this legislature has just a complete spending problem. And when you have a former Democratic governor coming out and saying that the Democrat majority in Olympia has a spending problem, you should take notice.

[00:11:55]>> One uh last question for you because a couple of our listeners are saying if and I'll be honest and I know you said you heard the show where I was talking about it. I would be in favor of of suspending for now the CCA and uh giving some relief, but Jerry in the 206 says, "Would gas companies just raise prices 55 cents then to make up for that? Would there be some way to make sure that that suspension would actually come to us as consumers?"

[00:12:26]>> Yeah, I Well, I mean, I guess that could be a valid concern. I don't have a lot of concern that that would be the case.

[00:12:32]uh the you know kind of the profitering type of of fear u but I think that the gas companies they're going to make their margin of profit whatever you know the margin that it is but um I don't believe that that would be the case >> senator thank you so much for your time appreciate you joining us >> hey thank you so much for having me and talking about this important issue