Climate Advisory Team report expensive, flawed,
and not believable

December 2, 2008

OLYMPIA…Sen. Jerome Delvin (R-Richland), a member of the governor’s Climate Advisory Team, says the team’s final report, released quietly before the Thanksgiving holidays, is deeply flawed, destructively expensive and simply not believable. Delvin has written a minority report calling for fundamental changes in the approach to climate change.  

“I strongly disagree with many of the CAT recommendations,” Delvin said. “First, they want to limit the number of miles people can drive, yet they don’t differentiate between those who can elect to drive less and those who must drive a certain distance for their work.  Trucking companies, stores making deliveries, commuters, salespeople working a territory – they have no choice. Taxing them will only raise the cost of goods and services for all of us, and especially hurts the poor. Instead, I suggest we offer strong incentives for using transit and electric and hybrid vehicles.”  

The minority report outlines Delvin’s major concerns with the CAT recommendations. It also suggests alternatives to expensive and punishing mandates.  

“The CAT recommendations will cost Washington citizens and businesses a small fortune,” Delvin said, “Since the report has no cost-benefit analysis, we have no idea how this will affect our jobs and economy. We also don’t even know if it will have any effect on greenhouse gases.” 

While the CAT recommendations are silent on whether the Legislature should adopt the Western Climate Initiative’s cap-and-trade proposal, they do endorse a cap-and-trade system for Washington. According to a Sept. 30, 2008 article in the Wall Street Journal, Delvin pointed out, experience in Europe with cap and trade shows the approach creates an economic hardship and job loss as companies leave for greener pastures – while effect on climate is little to none. In fact, Norway’s greenhouse gases actually rose 15 percent.  

“If Washington was to eliminate 100 percent of its greenhouse gases overnight, the U.S. Energy Information Administration says China’s increased output alone would replace it in 5 days,” Delvin said. “For that, we’re going to cripple our economy? There is a better way.  Instead of job-killing cap and trade, we must offer incentives for adopting energy efficiency. We must investigate all new clean energy sources, and include emissions-free nuclear and clean coal.” 

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Sen. Delvin represents the 8th Legislative District, which includes
Richland, Kennewick, Benton City, and Prosser.

Additional contact: Pat Albright at (360) 786-7519 or albright.pat@leg.wa.gov