"Washington law requires major sources of greenhouse gas emissions to file annual reports to Ecology detailing their emissions," Brittny Goodsell, a spokesperson for the Washington State Department of Ecology, said in an email. "Because the program is established under state law, we will continue to collect that data."
The federal regulation rollback means Washingtonians will have a better picture than the country at large of industrial greenhouse gas emissions, who is behind them and if quantities are going down — or up.
The dueling state and federal laws are just one example of the increasingly large gap between the Trump administration and West Coast blue states, which are trying to oppose the president's aggressive agenda.
The rollback came Sept. 12 when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it was ending reporting requirements for more than 8,000 large industrial facilities around the country, including about 10 locally.
Federal rules had required all companies that release more than 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases each year to report that data.
The Trump administration said the move cut "bureaucratic red tape" and would save "up to $2.4 billion in regulatory costs." It did not specify a time frame for those potential savings. Critics attacked the move, saying it hamstrings efforts to fight climate change.
Meanwhile, Washington law has been moving in the other direction. The state currently requires all facilities that emit more than 10,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year to report data. That's 11 in Cowlitz County and nine in Clark County.
Since returning to the presidency, Donald Trump has worked to systematically remove mentions of climate change from government websites and end measures the country had been taking to fight the problem.
Globally, temperatures have risen about 3 degrees in the past century, according to NASA data. Research shows that's driven by burning fossil fuels, which creates greenhouse gases that trap heat in Earth's atmosphere.
That warming has had profound local impacts by shrinking glaciers in the Cascade Range and altering the yearly timing of the Columbia River's increasingly warm flow.
Communities around Cowlitz County have been reckoning with the toll that key industries that keep the county economically afloat have on their health and quality of life, as well as on climate change.
Earlier this month, Emerald Kalama Chemical was fined $2.7 million by the Southwest Clean Air Agency for dramatically underreporting nongreenhouse gas pollutants that impact human health such as toluene.
About the project: The Murrow News Fellowship is a state-funded journalism project managed by Washington State University. Local partners are The Columbian and The Daily News. For more information, visit news-fellowship.murrow.wsu.edu.
© 2025 The Columbian (Vancouver, Wash.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
