Ferries and factory retrofits gave most of the projected cuts for 15% of the money

What this chart asks

Which types of climate projects got the money, and which delivered the emission cuts?

Why it is shown this way

• Paired points per type compare the share of money with the share of tons on one linear axis; a type whose spending point sits far above its tons point bought cuts at a high cost per ton.
• A cost-per-ton bar chart was not used because values range from $61 to $54,100, which a linear axis cannot show readably.
• Types are ordered from lowest to highest pooled cost per ton.

Data and accessibility

Download chart data · Open accessible table · Download PNG · Download SVG

Dataset wa-cca-spending-cost-per-ton, analysis category-shares

Sources

This chart draws on the sources of the dataset versions it visualizes.

Washington Climate Commitment Act spending: cost per ton of emission cuts, fiscal year 2025

1. Washington Department of Ecology, Climate Commitment Act Investments Report: Fiscal Year 2025 (Pub. 25-14-107), updated March 2026 Project-level fiscal year 2025 spending and projected lifetime emission cuts (Appendix B); biennium totals and cost-effectiveness (pp. 13, 40-45).

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Washington State public record. Curated values redistributed with attribution; the PDF itself is linked, not hosted.

   Reliability: Government. Has a stake in this finding. Ecology runs the CCA and compiles this report from figures each agency reports; it revised the report in March 2026 after errors in Commerce data. The agency benefits when CCA spending appears effective.

2. Washington Department of Ecology, transmittal letter to legislators on the updated CCA investment report, March 19, 2026 Original and revised biennium totals (8,635,900 and 1,201,286 tons; $40 and $322 per ton) and the 61 corrected Commerce projects.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Washington State public record. Linked as a public record.

   Reliability: Government. Speaks against its own interest. Ecology’s own account of its correction, which lowers the program’s reported results.

3. Washington Department of Commerce, "Commerce submits corrected greenhouse gas emissions data for state climate report," January 6, 2026 Commerce’s correction of eight rebate projects (7.5 million to 78,000 tons) and its own total of nearly 308,000 tons.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Washington State public record. Quoted with attribution.

   Reliability: Government. Speaks against its own interest. Commerce made the data-entry error and announced the correction.

4. Todd Myers, Washington Policy Center, "State CO2 report shows 86% of Washington’s claimed climate benefits are probably fake," January 6, 2026 Statement: Myers’ estimate that 86% of the claimed cuts were wrong.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Copyrighted; short quotation for commentary. Short quotation only.

   Reliability: Advocacy group. Has a stake in this finding. The Washington Policy Center is a free-market think tank that opposes the CCA’s design; Myers first identified the error.

5. Todd Myers, Washington Policy Center, "HB 2251, Weakening Oversight While Expanding Climate Spending," February 3, 2026 Statement: the 308,000-ton figure applied to all CCA-funded projects.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Copyrighted; short quotation for commentary. Short quotation only.

   Reliability: Advocacy group. Has a stake in this finding. Legislative memo opposing HB 2251 by a think tank critical of CCA spending.

6. FactHub, Washington Gasoline Price Premium and Carbon Allowance Costs, 2015-2026 (dataset version 2), auction-prices table Quarterly auction settlement prices used as the carbon-price benchmark; each price is sourced there to Ecology auction reports.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. FactHub dataset. Cited by exact version.

   Reliability: Other. An earlier FactHub dataset; prices transcribed from Ecology auction summary reports and secondary reports citing them.

7. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Report on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases, November 2023, Table ES.1 Social cost of CO2 ($190 for 2020 emissions, $230 for 2030, 2% near-term rate) as an alternative benchmark.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. U.S. federal government work. Linked as a public record.

   Reliability: Government. Peer-reviewed federal estimate of climate damages per ton; higher values make emission cuts look more worthwhile.

Limitations

• Project types are FactHub groupings of appropriation titles, not Ecology categories.
• Emission cuts are agency projections over each project's lifetime, not measured.
• About 71,000 tons that appear to be counted twice sit almost entirely in the ferry type.
• Several types (walking and biking, habitat, Tribal consultation) mainly serve goals other than cutting emissions.