By Carleen Johnson
(The Center Square) – In his last year in office, Gov. Jay Inslee says he’s as energetic and excited as ever.
In a meeting Thursday in Olympia with broadcasters ahead of the start of next week’s 2024 legislative session, Inslee made clear his number one priority.
“The first order of business is to stop the Republican Party from dismantling the Climate Commitment Act, which has put over a billion dollars into the transportation budget, to preserve that which we have,” he said.
He continued, “And unfortunately, those who are allied with the oil and gas industry, want to have unlimited pollution, they want no transparency about their massive profit margins and they want to stop our transportation system to the tune of a billion dollars.”
The questions from reporters grew more interesting when Inslee was outright asked if he had lied when he told Washingtonians that gas prices would only rise by a few cents when the CCA took effect.
The Washington Policy Center’s Thursday morning blog claiming documents from his administration show Inslee knew taxing carbon emissions would significantly increase gas prices was brought up.
Inslee responded, “That is not the case, what we did was to discuss with the public, through our Department of Ecology the best estimates that we could come up with about any particular compliance costs were variable.”
“In the discussion of the CCA all of this money is going back to Washingtonians to help them reduce their energy costs,” Inslee said.
He referenced a mother in Toppenish.
“She and her 14-year-old daughter, Jasmine, are getting a benefit from this program,” Inslee said. “It’s not cash but, it’s a way to reduce their utility bills.”
Inslee was pressed by news personality Brandi Kruse.
“Governor, you said Republicans pushed out some crazy notion on the tax that it would be something like $1.50 per gallon; that was actually the figure that was given by your chief policy advisor in 2014,” she said. “He based that off a high and a low and current CO2 prices [at auction] that are very similar to CO2 prices now; this was your own advisor’s estimate of 44 cents a gallon up to $1.46-per-gallon.”
Kruse concluded, “Either all of these policy advisors are wrong, or you are wrong.”
Inslee referenced the upcoming national championship football game between the University of Washington and the University of Michigan in his response.
“Look, I predict the Washington state Huskies are going to score 30 points in Houston,” he said. “Now, if it turns out to be 30 cents, will I have been, sort of, not done my job? No, I don’t think so. If it turns out to be 24 cents, will I not have done my job? What we’ve asked the Department of Ecology is do their best estimate at the most recent data. Not 2014, but the most recent and what they think could be in the realm of compliance costs”.
Inslee went on to say, “The individual causing massive pollution and eliminating a billion dollars of help that Washingtonians are getting right now, we can debate it ’til the cows come home.”
Carleen Johnson joins The Center Square at Washington’s State Government Reporter. She has 30-years of experience in broadcast journalism in the Puget Sound region, as well as being a traffic reporter for at least 10-different radio stations in the area in the mid 90’s.
Originally published by The Center Square. Republished with permission.
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