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

Ecology report totals before and after the correction

Question: How much did the 2023-25 lifetime emission-cut total and average cost per ton change when Ecology revised its report?

Result: Lifetime cuts fell from 8,635,900 to 1,201,286 metric tons (-86.1%); Ecology’s average cost rose from $40 to $322 per ton. Dividing the same $386.3 million by the original tons gives $44.73, so Ecology’s first-published $40 used slightly different inputs.

Operation: Transcription of Ecology figures; cost per ton = spending / lifetime tons.

Scope: 2023-25 biennium, all 37 agencies, projects Ecology counted as directly cutting emissions.

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• Lifetime tons are agency projections from calculator tools, not measured cuts.
• Biennium totals include fiscal year 2024 projects that this dataset does not list one by one.

Fiscal year 2025 projects with emission estimates: totals

Question: What did the fiscal year 2025 projects with emission estimates cost, and what do they claim to cut, in the revised report?

Result: 567 line items, $333.1 million, 866,116 lifetime tons: $385 per ton pooled; median line item $1,639 per ton.

Operation: Sum of Appendix B rows marked "Yes" (quantifiable reductions expected) with a numeric lifetime reduction; pooled cost per ton = total spending / total tons; median of per-project spending / tons.

Scope: Fiscal year 2025 (July 2024 - June 2025), 567 line items from 37-agency Appendix B of Ecology Pub. 25-14-107 (revised March 2026).

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• A "line item" is one row of Appendix B; some projects span several rows.
• 109 rows ($21.4 million, mostly Department of Natural Resources forest work) were expected to cut emissions but had no estimate; they are excluded, as in Ecology’s totals.

Robustness checks

• Sensitivity analysis: Sensitivity: line items that repeat a project’s full tonnage. Dropping 5 line items that repeat another line’s full tonnage removes 71,415 tons and raises the pooled cost to $419 per ton.
• Sensitivity analysis: Sensitivity: if projects cut more than reported. Even if every project cut three times the tons it reported, 82% of spending would still cost more per ton than the highest auction price.

Share of projects, spending and tons above carbon-price benchmarks

Question: What share of fiscal year 2025 emission-cutting projects, dollars and tons cost more per lifetime ton than the carbon price and other benchmarks?

Result: Highest auction price ($70.86): 97.1% of spending, 97.7% of line items, 72.0% of tons above; Twice the highest auction price ($141.72): 87.3% of spending, 95.2% of line items, 36.8% of tons above; EPA social cost of carbon, 2030 emissions ($230): 82.4% of spending, 90.0% of line items, 26.0% of tons above; $1,000 per ton: 55.6% of spending, 58.0% of line items, 7.5% of tons above.

Operation: For each benchmark B, count line items with spending / tons > B, and sum their spending and tons; divide by totals.

Scope: Same 567 fiscal year 2025 line items as fy2025-summary.

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• Allowance prices measure what it costs emitters to cut a ton under the cap at the margin, not the full social value of a cut.
• Projects also have benefits other than emission cuts, which a cost per ton does not count.

Cumulative share of spending and of tons by cost per ton

Question: How much of the money, and how much of the emission cuts, came from projects at or below each cost per ton?

Result: Projects at or below the top auction price ($71/ton) got 2.9% of spending and delivered 28.0% of the tons. Projects above $1,000/ton got 55.6% of spending for 7.5% of the tons.

Operation: For each cost ceiling C, sum spending and tons of line items with spending / tons <= C, divided by totals.

Scope: Same 567 fiscal year 2025 line items as fy2025-summary.

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• Tons include about 71,000 tons that appear to be counted twice (see duplicate-sensitivity).

Cost per lifetime ton by project type

Question: How does the cost per ton of emission cuts vary by type of project?

Result: Industrial and clean-fuel projects: $61/ton; Ferry hybrid-electric conversion: $101/ton; Farms, soils and waste: $283/ton; Solar and grid: $474/ton; Transit buses and service: $611/ton; Home appliance and electrification rebates: $613/ton; State agency vehicles and buildings: $904/ton; Habitat and forests: $936/ton; Public and commercial building upgrades: $1,543/ton; EV charging: $1,610/ton; Walking, biking and e-bikes: $13,354/ton; Home weatherization: $14,787/ton; Tribal consultation capacity: $54,100/ton.

Operation: FactHub assigned each line item to one of 11 types by its appropriation title; cost per ton = type spending / type tons; also the median of line-item costs.

Scope: Same 567 fiscal year 2025 line items as fy2025-summary.

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• Several types mix projects whose main purpose is not cutting emissions, such as walkability or salmon habitat, so their cost per ton overstates the cost of the emission cut itself.

Share of spending and share of tons cut, by project type

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

Result: Industrial and clean-fuel projects: 2.2% of spending, 13.5% of tons; Ferry hybrid-electric conversion: 12.9% of spending, 49.1% of tons; Farms, soils and waste: 2.4% of spending, 3.2% of tons; Solar and grid: 8.6% of spending, 7.0% of tons; Transit buses and service: 18.4% of spending, 11.6% of tons; Home appliance and electrification rebates: 10.8% of spending, 6.8% of tons; State agency vehicles and buildings: 1.8% of spending, 0.8% of tons; Habitat and forests: 2.8% of spending, 1.1% of tons; Public and commercial building upgrades: 10.1% of spending, 2.5% of tons; EV charging: 17.2% of spending, 4.1% of tons; Walking, biking and e-bikes: 6.4% of spending, 0.2% of tons; Home weatherization: 5.7% of spending, 0.1% of tons; Tribal consultation capacity: 0.7% of spending, 0.0% of tons.

Operation: For each FactHub project type: type spending / total spending, and type tons / total tons. One row per type and measure, types ordered from lowest to highest cost per ton.

Scope: Same 567 fiscal year 2025 line items as fy2025-summary.

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• Shares of tons include about 71,000 tons that appear to be counted twice, almost all in the ferry type (see duplicate-sensitivity).

Sensitivity: line items that repeat a project’s full tonnage

Question: How do the totals change if line items that repeat another line’s full lifetime tonnage are counted once?

Result: Removing 5 repeated rows cuts 71,415 tons (8.2% of fiscal year 2025 tons) and raises the pooled cost from $385 to $419 per ton.

Operation: Remove the second line item where two rows describe the same project and list the identical tonnage: three ferry-terminal "Electrical Connection for Hybrid" rows, a Washington State University building row, and a Clallam Transit vehicle row.

Scope: Same 567 fiscal year 2025 line items as fy2025-summary.

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• FactHub could not confirm with the agencies which rows are repeats. Other rows with the same tonnage (such as three Yakima County solar rows of 2,042.4 tons) may be separate projects and were kept.

Robustness check for: Fiscal year 2025 projects with emission estimates: totals

Sensitivity: if projects cut more than reported

Question: Would most spending still exceed the highest auction price if every project cut two, three or five times the reported tons?

Result: x1: 97.1% of spending above $70.86; x2: 87.3% of spending above $70.86; x3: 82.4% of spending above $70.86; x5: 80.2% of spending above $70.86.

Operation: Multiply every line item’s tons by M and recompute the share of spending on line items above $70.86 per ton.

Scope: Same 567 fiscal year 2025 line items as fy2025-summary.

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• A uniform multiplier is a stress test, not an estimate of actual under-counting.

Robustness check for: Fiscal year 2025 projects with emission estimates: totals