 Report shows meeting carbon standards would raise gas prices by nearly 40%
Earlier this month Governor Inslee’s Carbon Emissions Reduction Taskforce reviewed an economic analysis of carbon-reduction models, which has many asking if reaching the state’s carbon-reduction goals would come at too high of a price for middle-class families.
Economists with the Forecasting and Research Division at the Washington State Office of Financial Management, in consultation with the governor’s office, conducted the study. The analysis was focused on two scenarios – one that was insufficient to meet the state's 2035 emission-reduction goals and another “high-cost” scenario, which meets the 2035 target but would come with a shocking price tag.
According to the report, under the scenario in which the state priced carbon to reach current statutory targets for greenhouse-gas emissions in 2035, the price of gasoline would increase by nearly 40 percent and natural gas would increase by more than 60 percent!
The report also highlighted that the “high-cost” carbon- reduction plan would directly hurt working families, trade-dependent industries, the construction sector and the electricity sector. In an attempt to mitigate some of the harms to working families and those sectors hit hardest, the OFM report assumes revenue from those groups would be offset by tax credits.
The high price tag took many in Olympia by surprise, given that families and businesses are still digging out from the Great Recession.
Lawmakers on the Senate Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee will have an opportunity to question the governor’s staff on this and other issues at a committee meeting in Pasco on Thursday.
Study says natural factors, not humans, behind West Coast warming
By Craig Welch
Seattle Times environment reporter
It has been a subject of debate for years: How much has global warming contributed to a documented rise in temperatures along the West Coast?
A new study published Monday in a major research journal suggests the answer thus far, particularly in the Northwest, is: hardly any. ...Click here to read the full story!
 One of this issues addressed by lawmakers this interim was the recent settlement between the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Wild Fish Conservancy concerning the state’s early-winter hatchery-steelhead program. Under the agreement, settling a federal lawsuit filed by the conservancy in March, WDFW will make an 80-percent cut in the number of hatchery-raised young steelhead released into Puget Sound rivers.
Sen. Kirk Pearson, chair of the Senate Natural Resources and Parks Committee, led a work session in July in order to give the public an opportunity to weigh in on the controversial decision.
Ray Fryberg, executive director for fish and wildlife for the Tulalip Tribes, argued that the tribes should have been consulted prior to the deal being reached.
“We have been co-managers in the Puget Sound for decades,” said Fryberg. “We don’t feel like we were included in this discussion. We were not notified, and learned of it from the press release on the day of the deal."
Randy Kinley, representing the Lummi Nation, told lawmakers that if there had been such a consultation, he would have highlighted the cultural significance of fishing and the need for hatcheries, and Al Senyohl, president of the Steelhead Trout Club of Washington, said the decision also caught anglers by surprise.
Liz Hamilton, executive director of the NW Sports Fishing Industry Association, pointed to family-wage jobs that are likely to be lost, as well as a loss of revenue paid by the fishing industry.
|
