On Valentine’s Day, Washington state House Republicans spent a good portion of House floor debate explaining why they’d decided to vote “no” on a bill to provide energy assistance to low income residents, despite their insistence that they’re laser-focused on affordability.
The bill would establish a statewide low-income energy assistance program using cap-and-trade revenue rather than utility ratepayer fees. In other words, it would enable us to continue helping those who can’t afford their energy costs without saddling ratepayers with higher bills or leaving public utility districts with unfunded mandates.
State Rep. Peter Abbarno, R-Chehalis, even boasted on Facebook about his opposition. He recognized that “citizens can't afford to keep the lights on or heat their homes,” and his colleagues spent plenty of time on the House floor pointing out that Washington families are struggling with energy poverty — but then they turned around and voted against actually helping them.
Their argument is that Democrats in Olympia created high energy costs and that assistance programs only treat the symptom and not the root cause.
Rep. Brian Burnett from the 12th District talked about taking medication for migraines.
“If that’s all I ever do, Mr. Speaker, am I really addressing the issue of trying to figure out what is causing the migraines in the first place?” he asked.
The answer, of course, is that you can do both. Short-term help for those who need it now and longer-term solutions to fix structural unfairness.
The through-line in every Republican speech was that if we just repealed the Climate Commitment Act, everyone's energy bills would plummet and we wouldn’t have to give people assistance.
The problem with that argument is that energy prices are rising across the whole country, not just here in Washington, including in states without carbon pricing programs.
And last time I checked, Olympia Democrats don’t have jurisdiction outside of the state.
No, the actual drivers of rising energy prices are varied but well-documented: skyrocketing transmission infrastructure costs, federal tariffs on steel and solar equipment, explosive demand from data centers and AI facilities, and general inflation.
Here in Washington, the CCA adds roughly 20 cents per gallon to gas prices by some estimates. But its impact on electricity costs is minimal because most of our power comes from hydroelectric dams that produce zero emissions.
Meanwhile, states without carbon markets are seeing utility bills climb just as fast. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, residential electricity prices increased an average of 5% annually between 2021 and 2024 across all states. Washington's increase was in line with the national average.
If the CCA were actually the primary driver of energy costs, we'd see Washington as an outlier. But we don't. In fact, 17 other states saw more dramatic price increases than we did.
Several Republicans also argued that many utilities already offer assistance through voluntary programs. This is true, but voluntary programs funded by charitable contributions don't scale to meet the actual need, which is why we still have 300,000 Washingtonians struggling to pay their energy bills.
Rep. Sharlett Mena, the bill's prime sponsor, emphasized that HB 1903 is designed to work with existing utility efforts, not replace their programs. The bill explicitly allows utilities that already have assistance programs to continue them, and gives smaller utilities flexibility in how they structure their offerings.
After the lengthy debate, the bill ultimately passed with support from all Democrats and two Republicans who represent districts where energy costs hit hardest.
It's worth noting that those two members looked at the same bill as their colleagues and decided the merits outweighed the politics. Here in Lewis County, where up to one in five of us rely on existing assistance programs, it’s tough to understand why our representatives couldn’t come to the same conclusion.
Energy assistance programs are neither new nor radical. Most states have them, and the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program has existed since 1981. Rather than temporary or one-off aid, these programs provide ongoing help, tiered by need, to households with the greatest energy burden.
What's changed recently though is the scale of need as more families are falling behind on utility bills or choosing between heating and groceries. And while some of that is driven by energy prices, much more is driven by housing scarcity, wage stagnation and the general economic squeeze facing working families.
There are real, legitimate conversations to be had about energy policy in Washington, about transmission costs and utility regulation and whether we're getting what we're paying for out of the CCA. Those are debates worth having.
But when hundreds of thousands of people are struggling to stay afloat, voting against a measure that would help lower their bills undercuts rhetoric about affordability.
If our legislators truly believe Washington families are facing energy poverty, they should be the loudest voices demanding robust assistance programs to help them. Instead, they're using those families' struggles as a talking point while voting to leave them out in the cold.
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Zac Eckstein is chair of the Lewis County Democrats. Learn more about the party at https://lewiscountydemocrats.org.
