Members of the Climate Legislative and Executive Workgroup go into a huddle Friday, as Gov. Jay Inslee argues that toothless climate-change goals adopted just before the recession create an ‘obligation’ for the state.

OLYMPIA, Dec. 8.–If there really was ever any chance the Legislature would take up sweeping climate change legislation next year, it seemed to melt away faster than the polar ice caps Friday. A state task force charged with designing a greenhouse-gas attack plan finally had that breakdown that seemed so long in coming, and the main question now is whether it will produce a report later this year that anyone will find useful.

What happened in the Climate Legislative and Executive Workgroup Friday is insider-ish to the extreme – nothing actually happened. But that is sort of the point. After months of meetings, Gov. Jay Inslee finally called the question – he asked the panel of four lawmakers to approve a set of recommendations for the Legislature, among them an endorsement for a Washington-state cap-and-trade policy. The two Republican members balked. The Democratic governor, in a genteel way, accused them of not caring about the environment, and the Republicans, in a not-so-genteel way, said they resented the accusation.

The actual punch-line comes on Dec. 18. That’s when the panel is supposed to take a final vote — the green-minded guv was jumping the gun by a couple weeks. But the brouhaha demonstrated that there is about as much chance of a recommendation that will launch a legislative debate next year as there is that the Legislature can do anything that will significantly reduce the level of carbon dioxide in the global atmosphere. “I’m wondering about our ability to reach consensus if we have several members who want to make recommendations and several members who do not,” the governor said. Same might be said for anyone who has been paying close attention to the committee these past many months. The panel has four voting members, two Democratic lawmakers and two Republicans, and the chance that three of them would agree on anything was always a bit iffy. That means both sides are likely to write minority reports that can easily be ignored by the opposing party.

Washington, it might be noted, contributes about three-tenths of one percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Could Impact Boeing

The workgroup, one of the big priorities for Inslee last session, is charged with making recommendations on sweeping policies that aim to reduce Washington state’s carbon footprint. Inslee’s favorite is cap and trade, a policy that would set pollution limits for industry, ratcheting them down over time, and allowing individual businesses to purchase credits from firms that have reduced pollution below targets. California launched such a policy last year; other possibilities include a carbon tax as has been imposed in British Columbia, low-carbon fuel standards, bans on utility purchasing of coal power generated in other states, and a host of others.

The idea the committee would give thumbs up to anything at this point, before anyone knows how much the policies would cost, seems a bit ludicrous, said state Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale. That goes double at a time when Boeing is trying to decide where it will build its next-generation airliner – here or in some other state that does not impose the same rules? Ericksen, who is representing the Senate Majority Coalition Caucus on the panel, noted that the committee’s consultants have concluded that a cap and trade program proposed on the federal level might cost 80,000 jobs if implemented in Washington state.

“We are working on some very serious topics that will have some very serious impacts on manufacturing, and my concern about today’s hearing, governor, is that if I am sitting in a Chicago office, looking at where I am going to build the 777X, I am not getting much assurance that Washington state is pulling together to create manufacturing jobs – that is one of my concerns.”

Republicans say they went along with Inslee’s proposal for a task force last session because its consultants are supposed to produce a report about the costs and benefits of the various policies. The report for once might help determine whether any state policy would really do much good, and whether it would be worth it.

Aims to Satisfy Arbitrary Goal

Inslee has a rather different thing in mind. All along he has argued that the state has a duty to reduce carbon emissions to comply with a goal established by the Legislature in 2008. A bill that year established a goal of reducing the state’s carbon output to 1990 levels by 2020. In 2035, the state’s carbon output was supposed to be reduced by 25 percent, and by 50 percent in 2050.

Said Inslee, “My view is that our committee ought to recommend to the Legislature first that we do take action, because that is our statutory obligation, that inaction is not an option, and that the Legislature should act. That is an important statement. It should act, because if we fail to act, we fail to meet our targets.”

Here’s the problem. The 2008 figures and deadlines seem to have been plucked from thin air. It was a matter of political compromise. Both chambers of the Legislature were in Democratic hands at the time, yet even the Democrat-controlled Senate balked at the idea of imposing a cap-and-trade policy advocated by then-Gov. Christine Gregoire, because of the potential impact on the Washington economy. The climate-change goals  were innocuous by comparison, because they contained no enforcement mechanism. Any talk of devising policies to meet those goals was sidelined a few months after the end of the 2008 session, when the national economy crashed.

To those who take the goals seriously — as apparently Inslee does — the state is horribly off-track. Consulting firm SAIC, which is doing the statistical work for the committee, has concluded that without changes the state will miss the mark by 9.4 million metric tons in 2020, and it will be even further-off in 2035 and 2050. But where Inslee says the 2008 legislation created an obligation, Republicans Ericksen and Shelley Short, who represents the House GOP caucus, say the policy itself deserves a hard look. So far the numbers produced by the consultants are pretty general — perhaps a necessity when no specific proposals are on the table. But you can’t base a recommendation on those, Short said. “If we come to the point where the economic ramifications of getting to the 2035 or 2050 goals are so much that we shouldn’t do them, then we shouldn’t do them.”

Meanwhile Democratic members, far more sympathetic to environmental groups, aren’t as concerned about the cost as they are about doing something. “We have got to fish or cut bait,” said state Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-Orcas Island.

Inslee Forces Issue

The governor forced the issue Friday when he suggested the committee vote on a list of five rather general principles he has put forward. First is support for cap and trade. Second is a ban on “coal-by-wire” – meaning transmission of coal-generated power from other states to Washington utilities. Third, increased standards for energy efficiency in new construction, in addition to what the state already requires. Fourth is state support for financing mechanisms encouraging consumers to adopt clean energy technologies. And fifth is support for state measures that would encourage carbon reductions in the state transportation system.

That’s when the atmosphere in the room started getting hot. Ericksen pointed out that the committee isn’t supposed to take a vote until Dec. 18. And Short said, “I think for us to have little discussion on the economy, governor, and then to come forward and ask what policies you are going to support is a little disingenuous.”

Inslee said the 2008 goals create an “obligation,” and said “several of the members” wanted to do something about it. Yet he said “at least two members of these committees allude to the fact that maybe you should just throw these goals and requirements out the window and somehow dodge this responsibility, and that is disappointing to me.”

Short bristled. “What I really resent, governor, is you intimating that we don’t care.” She added, “My God, we are playing with people’s lives, their businesses, whether we can do manufacturing in this state, whether we can be competitive. …I guess you don’t care about the costs, so we can have a tit for tat there.”

The discussion went on in the same vein for another half-hour or so, but in the end, no vote was taken, and the final battle was deferred to later. The governor declared that he has the deepest respect for all members of the committee, adding, “we’ve seen democracy in action today, and we look forward to progress.”

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