“The oil and gas industry’s projections on all of this are halfway between nonsense and nonsense.”
That was Gov. Jay Inslee speaking last winter about the prospect that the state’s new climate protection policy would result in a significant hike in gasoline prices.
“This will have minimal impact, if any. pennies “We’re talking pennies,” Inslee said on another occasion.
Now we know that the impact was not minimal. Somewhere between bullshit and bullshit, Washington hit reality. That means if you charge fossil fuel companies, they pass those costs on and gas prices go up by an amount proportional to that fee.
Washington now has the highest fuel prices in the country at around $5 a gallon, overtaking perpetual leader California for first place. In an excellent review of all this, Seattle Times reporters Isabella Breda and Manuel Villa, economists and others said the state’s new climate change law was responsible for about 50 cents of it — exactly what the crap and bullshit forecasters predicted.
In a way, this is a “duh” moment. Of course, CO2 charges increase the price of gas. That is the point!
This is designed to drive up gas prices, so over time both businesses and consumers are under market pressure to find ways to use less gas. Think cigarette taxes and smoking reduction.
But what are we to make of our green governor getting into this with all his nonsense and bullshit?
Since the carbon pricing program was proposed in 2021, Inslee says not to worry about it. His estimators at the state Department of Environmental Protection said gas prices would rise by maybe 5 cents, so little that it would hardly be noticeable.
Shutdown by a factor of 10. Shutdown on purpose?
Todd Myers of the right-wing group Washington Policy Center is one who got it right. Nearly a year ago, using government data, he estimated prices would rise 46 cents. I asked him if he thought the state simply made a mistake or if he lied outright.
“In order to be as charitable as possible, I would say that there are strong political incentives to undercut the cost of a program like this,” he said. “Then when the truth comes out, it feels like, ‘We’re doing the right thing, and now people are trying to stop us from doing the right thing.’ ”
Myers knows these dangers firsthand. Seven years ago he worked on a measure to reduce emissions through a carbon charge called Initiative 732. But the premise of this campaign was to tell voters the truth: Yes, it will raise your gas prices (roughly 25 cents a gallon) . . We are so confident that we will reimburse you for these costs by reducing state sales tax.
“Increasing the price of gasoline gives people a clear incentive to be more energy efficient by carpooling, buying a more fuel-efficient car, or telecommuting,” Myers wrote a few weeks before the 2016 vote.
Big tactical mistake. Voters, feeling like they were being told to eat their broccoli, butchered I-732 at the ballot box. The same fate awaited a follow-up to the carbon fee in 2018, Initiative 1631.
The conclusion for policy professionals was clear: Don’t mess with gas prices. Find ways to communicate climate policy that aren’t so blunt about pain at the pump.
By 2021, talk of carbon taxes and gas prices had gone out of fashion. The Climate Commitment Act, passed by state legislature this year, imposed fees on the state’s most polluting companies, such as fuel producers and refiners, and also capped overall emissions. Since the money raised was to be spent on projects across the state, the name “Cap and Invest” was coined for it.
It is interesting to go back and listen to this debate in Parliament. Proponents of the bill only talk about the fate of the planet and how corporations are charging polluters — with little mention that it actually costs people anything. Dissenters said it would raise gas prices. But they knew they were losing the messaging battle.
“That’s verbal camouflage, that’s it,” railed one senator, Phil Fortunato, R-Auburn, during a plenary debate. “You call it something complicated like ‘cap and trade’ or ‘cap and invest’ but the end result is that it’s going to cost you more money on carbon.”
In other words, in academic circles it’s called “strategic misrepresentation.” This is when political actors cut costs or emphasize benefits in order to get a project across the finish line.
I have a cynical theory on all of this. After watching voters torpedo one climate initiative after another in our liberal, green state, I’ve come to the conclusion that passing one might be impossible without strategically misrepresenting it to the public.
That’s because climate change mitigation solutions are being turned on their head, contrary to what is usually successful. They offer immediate pain for speculative future benefit. Pay now, make life better later. That’s the opposite of our usual political formula, which either sells instant perks or charges a fee to a credit card (or both — see federal budget deficit).
Ultimately, I agree with the 50 cents a gallon if it initiates a shift away from fossil fuels. Beyond the spin job, the biggest failures are that the state hasn’t come up with much to get the oil companies to pay some of those costs or help working people who can’t afford it.
Going from a dirty fuel economy to a clean one will, to me, be the most disruptive shift our society has attempted in my lifetime. The truth is that 50 cents a gallon is probably just the start.
Should top officials be more honest about all of this? They definitely should.
But no bullshit or bullshit: would anything ever happen if they were?