Sen. John Braun’s recent column about Bill Gates and Washington’s Climate Commitment Act (CCA) leaves out the most important facts, especially for a poor and climate-vulnerable county like ours.
Braun claims Gates now agrees that climate concerns are exaggerated. But Gates did not say climate change is minor. He wrote that it will not literally “lead to humanity’s demise,” while emphasizing it remains a serious problem that will hit poor communities hardest. That is Lewis County exactly: one of the poorest counties in the state and repeatedly identified in federal and state assessments as highly vulnerable to flooding, drainage failures, and climate-driven storm impacts.
Braun asserts the CCA has produced “no measurable reduction” in emissions. That is simply not possible to know. The state’s emissions inventory currently stops in 2021, two years before the CCA took effect in 2023. The first emissions data reflecting the CCA will not exist until 2026. Declaring “no measurable reduction” is incorrect.
On gas prices, Braun again narrows the story. Fuel suppliers covered by the CCA must buy carbon allowances, but rather than absorb the cost, they pass it directly through at the pump, just as they do with refinery outages or changes in global oil prices. Independent estimates put the CCA-related impact at roughly 10-25 cents per gallon, while critics cite 30-50 cents. There is no measurable way to validate what that number really is. Our gas prices are driven by many factors, like state gas taxes, price pressure from a constrained West Coast refinery/distribution system, and global oil price fluctuations. The CCA plays a role, but oil companies highlight it because it’s easier to blame a state policy than to talk about their own pricing choices and profits.
What Braun never mentions is the benefit side, the part that matters to the people he represents. In Lewis County alone, CCA revenue has already funded more than $1.2 million in local projects: a $571,200 energy-efficiency retrofit at the county jail, new ADA-accessible transit vehicles, safer bus stops, and an e-Transit station near Morton for special-needs riders. Another $1.1 million has been invested in salmon-recovery work in local streams, and state forest-conservation programs specifically note CCA-funded projects in the rugged terrain of our own county. These are not abstract line items; they are dollars returned directly to one of Washington’s poorest regions.
Braun’s hillside development above the old Yard Birds makes the point even clearer. He stripped a steep, prominent slope where the City of Chehalis required geologic-hazard mitigation, leaving behind an eyesore that reflects poor environmental judgment. It’s fully consistent with how he downplays broader climate and environmental risks.
Lewis County is poor, flood-prone and already feeling the effects of a changing climate. We need leaders who take those risks seriously and tell the full truth.
Braun’s column, and his record, showcase someone who is short-sighted on environmental stewardship and the environmental impact his policies will have on the people he wants to represent in Congress.
Matt Evans
Centralia
