WA Governor’s office delayed fixing major climate data error, records show

OLYMPIA, Wash. - Governor Ferguson’s Office delayed the public release of a major correction regarding state carbon emission reductions by more than two weeks, according to public records obtained by news outlet Axios.

The administrative hold masked a severe math error in evaluating Washington's Climate Commitment Act.

State officials initially claimed cap-and-trade funded projects had reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 8.6 million metric tons, when the true figure was 1.2 million metric tons.

WA's botched climate law numbers

Axios reporter Melissa Santos said public records revealed state agencies had a correction strategy ready to deploy weeks before it was cleared.

"I just was a little surprised that there had been a whole, fully formed plan to try and correct this misinformation that went out," Santos said. "A whole press release was drafted, ready to go […] And they did not get [permission] from the governor's office. Not until after this error was made very public by the conservative Washington Policy Center, did this actually go out."

Internal records showed state officials recognized the magnitude of the 7.4 million metric ton discrepancy immediately.

"We actually have state officials saying, ‘Wow, this really is a really big difference,’ and they said specifically, ‘Given the size of the error, we believe we need to publicly acknowledge and take responsibility for it,’" Santos said. "They have this urgency. The governor's office did not."

When asked about the delay, Santos says the governor’s office said they needed to do an additional review, wanted to ensure calculations were completely accurate and that a plan was in place to prevent future errors.

But Santos noted that explanation "didn’t quite square with the records," which showed little administrative progress on preventative policies during the hold period.

WA Governor's Office slow to act?

Santos emphasized the delay reflects a larger operational mandate requiring the governor or his staff to sign off before many state agencies can issue press releases, communicate with media or send out information to the public.

In an exclusive April report, Santos published a story detailing the unprecedented mandate and how the policy caused delays to get information out to the community, including one that involved measles.

She questions if the governor’s office has the capacity to weigh so many issues and decisions when state departments not only have their own leaders but multiple staff members on their communication team.

"For me, maybe this one thing is, arguably, a small thing, but this is really part of a pattern with our governor's office currently — just sort of acting as a roadblock for when agencies want to get information to the public," Santos said.

She added the review process harms state efficiency and could delay critical information to the public.

"We have a government efficiency problem, people just not being able to do their job by their own accounts, and information not getting to the public in the timelines that professionals in state government think it should," Santos said.

WA Governor's Office responds to controversy

FOX 13 Seattle reached out to the governor’s office to see if there was more of an explanation beyond what was provided to Santos.

Spokesperson Brionna Aho released this statement on Thursday:

"The governor's office handled the release of this information in a responsible, transparent and accurate fashion. Any suggestion to the contrary is absurd.

After receiving the initial draft on the evening of Saturday, Dec. 20, the Governor's Office directed state agencies to conduct additional review to verify the source of the error and confirm no additional mistakes existed in the data. It was important to the Governor's Office that any information we shared was completely accurate. Employees of those agencies worked over the Christmas and New Year holidays, while our state was grappling with the impacts of a historic flood.

A news release was issued Monday, Jan. 6 — just nine business days after the initial draft was received.

While this had nothing to do with our timing, had we released this information on Dec. 22 before we had the numbers confirmed, I'm confident some members of the media would have criticized the decision to share this important update right before Christmas, where news is less visible."

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