Will WA use climate dollars to fix storm-ravaged roads?

Back-to-back weather systems carrying enormous amounts of moisture and warm air pummeled the Seattle region this month, devastating roads as rivers ate away at anything their swollen banks could loosen, floods raced across normally dry land, and landslides spilled across highways.

The extreme weather has many pinning the blame on a changing climate. So, can the state use funds collected from the Climate Commitment Act — which brings in money from polluters with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions — to help repair storm-damaged roads?

Depends who you ask.

They’re not intended to be used for road projects, so generally the answer is no,” said state Sen. Marko Liias, D-Edmonds, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee. “After the damage has occurred, it’s not going to help us reduce our emissions. We’ve already failed to address the problem that’s there.”

State Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima, disagreed.

“My humble opinion is, and depending on the circumstances, yes they could,” said King, the top Republican on the transportation committee.

As state lawmakers prepare for a short legislative session beginning Jan. 12, the question of how climate dollars should be used will once again reach Olympia, including in the form of a Republican bill to redefine the law. It’s an argument that has lingered since the Legislature created the act in 2021, requiring the state’s polluters to reduce emissions, or else purchase allowances to cover them.

Since the act’s inception, critics have derided it as a slush fund for environmentalists and their preferred Democratic politicians, or referred to it as an illegal gas tax, punishing every driver for what they describe as a global problem that can’t be solved by one state alone, or one out of humanity’s hands.

Supporters say the law has raised much-needed funds to finally confront an era-defining challenge and existential threat, and point to an effort to repeal the law that voters roundly rejected last year as a sign of its embrace by the state’s residents.

Since the carbon market launched in 2023, it has raised $4.3 billion — with a staggering $1.1 billion in the last three months alone.

The money so far has gone toward funding programs like electric school buses, solar and heat pump installations, battery research, electric vehicle rebates and energy credits, as a Department of Ecology website details.

State Rep. Andrew Barkis, R-Olympia, has long been a critic of the law, and is drafting a bill for the upcoming session that would allow “broader use of CCA dollars,” he said.

“For years, I have been pushing for this,” said Barkis, the ranking Republican on the House Transportation Committee. “The pushback is nope. Can’t. Needs to have a carbon component, blah blah blah.”

Barkis said his bill would complement Gov. Bob Ferguson’s emergency declaration and allow the one-time use of climate money to quickly fix storm-ravaged roads. It would also weaken environmental laws, for instance allowing construction in waterways, which is normally restricted to narrow windows during the year.

Barkis said he was “not a climate denier” and recognized that December’s storms were the “worst natural disaster we’ve had in 20 to 30 years.” But he questions whether climate change is wholly caused by human activity, and suggested that the act’s funds are unfairly doled out to Democratic allies.

Approving one-time, special use of the money is “very easy to do. If the governor came out and said, ‘This is what we need to do,’ we could do it,” he said. “We are not abandoning our climate goals. What we’re doing is taking care of an immediate problem for the people of Washington.”

Ferguson said Thursday he hadn’t considered the use of climate dollars, and was focused on the immediate concerns left behind by the natural disaster.

Liias, though, was clear. Climate funds cannot be used for roadwork, though he added that his committee will “take a look at everything that comes through,” which may include Barkis’ bill.

Other state funds can be used to rebuild after the storm, Liias said, like money brought in from this year’s 6-cent increase to the gas tax. The tax is set to go up by another penny this summer.

“We actually have funding now for emergency repairs, maintenance and preservation,” he said. “We must use the funding we’ve got and focus the Climate Commitment Act on things that make us more resilient.”

It’s unclear how much the bump in gas tax has brought in so far, but a fiscal note attached to the bill that approved the increase anticipated it would generate well over $1 billion over two years.

Liias also said Ferguson’s emergency declaration would lead to money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Liias said the state “absolutely” had adequate funding for emergency repairs related to the storm, as well as to strengthen and preserve the state’s aging infrastructure — as long as lawmakers appropriately prioritize the work.

That could be made easier if lawmakers approve Ferguson’s transportation budget, which he released Friday. Besides plowing more than a $1 billion into the state ferry system, he proposed spending $2.1 billion over the next decade for road maintenance and preservation, a plan his office had conceived even before the storm.

With new roadwork money on top of the gas tax increase, the decisions legislators face are eased, Liias said, so “not everything is such a dire trade-off.”

“Whether it’s atmospheric rivers or snowstorms or windstorms, this is something we’re seeing more of and we want to make sure we’re adequately prepared,” he said. “Acts of God happen, and that’s why we need to set aside emergency funds. But we also need to make sure that our infrastructure is well-maintained.”

Liias noted that 10% of state bridges are at least 80 years old, and those old bridges are more brittle and susceptible to storm damage.

“If all this infrastructure was in good repair, we wouldn’t have all this damage,” he said. “This is why we need to stay more focused on taking care of it, to meet all of these expected and unexpected things that happen.”

King, who sits atop the Senate committee with Liias, had a bridge in mind as well, but came to a different conclusion on the use of climate dollars. He said the act may not even have to be amended for its money to be used to fix roads and bridges after the storm.

“If a bridge goes out and the people who use that bridge now have to drive 20 miles around to another bridge, that’s 20 miles in the morning, 20 miles in the afternoon, and 40 miles they wouldn’t normally drive,” he said.

By fixing that bridge, “you’re reducing emissions, which in my opinion would meet the definitions of the Climate Commitment Act.