Citizens Commission adopts consolidated comments on tax preference reviews, flags reporting issues for Legislature

The Citizens Commission for Performance Measurement of Tax Preferences voted Oct. 21 to adopt consolidated commissioner comments on a package of tax preference reviews and will forward those comments to the Washington State Legislature.

Chair Nelson Ramirez opened the discussion of consolidated comments, explaining that green items indicated agreement, yellow signaled some variation and red would indicate an inability to reach consensus. After brief discussion and two recusals by Commissioner Grant Forsyth on natural-gas-related items, commissioners approved the reconciled language for most recommendations and voted on several grouped motions.

"My participation really is only to ask clarifying questions on your comments, and I don't vote on them," Representative Jerry Paulette, ex officio member and chair of JLARC, said during the meeting, underscoring his role as a nonvoting clarifier on procedural and factual points.

Key votes and motions

- The commission approved the minutes of its Sept. 22, 2025 meeting by roll-call vote (aye: Andy Knobsinger Meadows; Grant Forsyth; Scott Edwards; Dr. Sharon Kyoko; James Orr). The motion passed.

- Commissioners voted to adopt commissioner comments for recommendation numbers 1, 2 and 17 (recommendation 2 concerns natural gas for transportation and recommendation 17 concerns energy sales to silicon smelters). Commissioner Grant Forsyth recused himself from this specific vote; roll call recorded four ayes and the motion passed.

- The commission adopted the reconciled comment for recommendation 3 (a natural-gas-related item focusing on reporting) by roll…