Washington state officials vastly overstated emission reductions from climate law due to ‘data entry error’

The Washington Department of Commerce vastly overstated the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that would be reduced by eight rebate projects funded by state pollution fees in a report published last year, the agency acknowledged Tuesday.

Todd Myers, the vice president for research at Washington Policy Center, first discovered the mistake. He said it should have been caught immediately.

The report, published by the Department of Ecology, was intended to outline how the state spent $1.5 billion collected through the Climate Commitment Act over the previous two years to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Washington. Passed in 2021, the state Climate Commitment Act caps and reduces greenhouse gas emissions in Washington, with a goal of reducing emissions by 95% by 2050.

Companies that emit more than the cap must buy credits at a state auction.

In November, the Department of Ecology officials said in their report, titled “Climate Commitment Act Investments,” that eight projects that provided rebates to low- and moderate-income households to install more efficient electric equipment and appliances would reduce emissions by 7.5 million metric tons.

In an update, however, the Department of Ecology now says the projects will reduce emissions by 78,000 tons. The eight projects, which cost a total of $8.7 million, initially accounted for 86% of the total carbon dioxide emissions claimed for projects in the report.

The Department of Ecology attributed the mistake to a “data entry error.”

“We made an error in reporting data for this program. The Climate Commitment Act is a vital part of the state’s efforts to control carbon emissions, and we’re committed to ensuring that the information we share is complete and accurate,” Jennifer Grove, assistant director of energy for Commerce, said in a statement. “Corrective measures are already in place to strengthen our processes and prevent similar errors in the future.”

The Department of Ecology has updated the report to acknowledge the error. The update says the agency “will publish an updated report after further reviewing the greenhouse gas emissions data submitted by state agencies.” The report is expected to be released in the coming weeks.

According to the Department of Ecology, the report included data from 3,600 projects submitted by 37 agencies. According to the agency, it has launched a review of data submitted for the report.

“Accurate data is essential to guiding our state’s work to reduce carbon pollution,” Joel Creswell, manager of Ecology’s Climate Pollution Reduction program, said in a statement. “We’re updating our processes to more thoroughly check data reported by agencies so this doesn’t happen again.”

The agency updated the figure following a report by Myers. Myers flagged the figure hours after the report was released last year. The Washington Policy Center, which promotes free market policies, has criticized the Climate Commitment Act.

In an interview Wednesday, Myers said he “immediately” recognized that the cost to reduce a metric ton of CO2 in the report was “far too low.” While the cost had been $1,410.14 per Metric Ton the year prior, the report claimed the average cost in the report was $40.

“The minute I saw that, I realized there was something wrong,” Myers said. “So I started simply going through the report.”

After about a half-hour of searching, Myers found eight programs with numbers that were “particularly problematic.” Several programs in Eastern Washington are among the projects the agency now says had erroneous data.

These include energy efficiency projects in Chewelah, Airway Heights, Ellensburg and two through Washington State University.

“What I found was that of these eight projects, seven of them cost $1 per metric ton. There is no way that that’s real,” Myers said. “I don’t think there’s projects in the world that can reduce a metric ton of CO2 for $1.”

Myers said 43 projects similar to the ones identified as erroneous had a cost per metric ton of reduction of $613.

While the number was a mistake, Myers said it points to a larger issue in the Departments of Ecology and Commerce.

“Whether it was intentional or not, they should have caught it,” Myers said. “And the reason I know that is I caught it immediately.”