Governor Inslee’s carbon reduction goals, that had been tracked by a state agency he created, have suddenly been removed sometime in the last few weeks. The previous metrics had been the same for the first several years of the administration and available to check regularly.

When Governor Inslee took office, a central piece of his agenda was to use Lean Management to ensure the state delivered on promises in a range of areas. The Governor told John Bernard, author of “Government That Works” and a member of his transition team, that, “holding ourselves accountable for results to the citizens of Washington isn’t politically expedient, but it clearly is the right thing to do.”

That apparently has changed, at least with regard to his targets on climate change.

Last year, we noted that the Governor’s record meeting his own climate targets was poor. Now, Results Washington, which oversees the Lean management goals, has removed the links to the previous climate-related targets and simply says the targets are “In development.”

There are a few other areas where Results Washington is developing new metrics, like Behavioral Health and Washington State Fiscal Health. Given the centrality of climate policy – and the poor results thus far – it is interesting that it is one of the areas that has been removed.