Democratic lawmakers in Olympia sold the Climate Commitment Act with this promise: higher fuel costs today would mean stronger protection from floods tomorrow. That pledge helped justify what amounts to a hidden tax, now adding roughly 57 cents per gallon to gasoline, pushing the CCA’s effective fuel tax above Washington’s long-standing 52-cent gas tax.
But as roads wash out, towns flood, hillsides collapse, and levees fail across the state, one fact is impossible to ignore: the money didn’t go where voters were told it would. The promise was broken. …
When lawmakers passed the CCA in 2021, they led with floods. … Voters were told the pain at the pump would translate into protection on the ground.
Instead, of the roughly $1.5 billion spent so far under the CCA, only about one-half of 1 percent has gone toward flood mitigation, despite flooding being one of Washington’s most predictable and damaging climate risks. In fact, the state spent twice as much on teaching kids how to ride bicycles as it did on protecting homes, roads and levees from flooding. …
This didn’t happen because the state lacked money. Overall state spending has nearly doubled in recent years, growing far faster than inflation or population. …
Under Gov. Jay Inslee, Washington imposed one of the most expensive climate programs in the country while failing to fund the very protections used to justify it. The result is higher costs for families, weakened emergency reserves, and communities left exposed when the rain comes. …
If the state’s flagship climate law can’t deliver on its core promise in the midst of the very crises it cites, then it isn’t just failing policy.
It’s costing Washingtonians dearly at the pump, and in flooded neighborhoods across the state.