Climate Commitment Act (CCA) auctions and trading

Businesses that are covered under the Climate Commitment Act (CCA) must obtain compliance instruments equal to their covered emissions.

There are two types of compliance instruments, each equal to one metric ton of carbon dioxide:

Emissions allowances (which are issued by Ecology)
Offset credits (which come from investing in projects that help reduce carbon in the atmosphere)

Participating businesses can get emissions allowances by:

Purchasing them from Ecology at quarterly auctions.
Trading with other cap-and-invest program participants.
Receiving them directly from Ecology (for certain businesses, per the CCA).

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Trainings available!

Registration is now open for our first three trainings covering how to sign up for and create the accounts in the auctions and trading platform.

Check out the More resources section to register.

Cap-and-invest help desks

For any questions about cap-and-invest auctions and trading market, please contact CCAAuctions@ecy.wa.gov.

For any questions about emissions reporting and verification, please contact GHGReporting@ecy.wa.gov.

For any other questions about the cap-and-invest program, you can direct inquires to the point of contact found at the bottom of this page.

Auction and trading platform information

In December 2021, Washington joined the Western Climate Initiative, Inc. (WCI), the nonprofit that provides the auction and trading platform for the linked programs in California and Québec, as well as the stand-alone program in Nova Scotia.

We will hold the first of our quarterly auctions in the second half of February 2023. To participate in an auction or trade allowances through the WCI platform, businesses must first set up an account in the Compliance Instrument Tracking System Service (CITSS).

The Compliance Instrument Tracking System Service (CITSS) is an online platform that is used for greenhouse gas (GHG) cap-and-trade programs like the ones in California, Québec, and now Washington. CITSS provides accounts for market participants to hold and trade compliance instruments (emissions allowances and offset credits).

CITSS is used to:

Register entities participating in Washington’s cap-and-invest program
Track the ownership of compliance instruments
Enable and record compliance instrument transfers
Help entities stay in compliance with program requirements
Help keep the market functional, safe, and secure

Washington cap-and-invest market participants can register in CITSS starting in early October 2022. Ecology is providing trainings for covered entities, opt-in entities, and general market participants beginning in October. More information can be found in the More resource s section, below.

To start preparing for registration, we recommend that you download and review our new CITSS Onboarding Resource Packet.

You can also sign up for our Auctions and Trading email updates to receive a notification when CITSS is open for registration.

CITSS registration forms will be posted in early October 2022. Once the documents are posted, you'll be able to find everything you need to register for CITSS on our website, including:

User registration forms
Account application forms
Account management forms
Facility management forms
Information about data security

In the meantime, we have developed a CITSS Onboarding Resource Packet to help businesses and individuals prepare for CITSS registration. We recommend that anyone intending to participate in the cap-and-invest market download this document and begin preparing the necessary information in advance of CITSS registration opening in October.

Sign up for our Auctions and Trading email updates to receive information on upcoming trainings and a notice when CITSS is open for registration.

Program compliance

At the end of each four-year ‘compliance period,’ participating emitters must submit 'compliance instruments' — emissions allowances and offset credits, if applicable — equal to their covered emissions for all four years.

In addition, by Nov. 1 of each year, participants must submit compliance instruments equal to 30% of prior year emissions. That means if an entity only submits the required 30% annually, at the end of the four-year period they would need to submit the remaining 70% of their total emissions. However, entities can always submit more than the required 30% annual amount prior to the end of the compliance period.

We will provide more guidance about compliance and how to submit allowances and offset credits to Ecology as we approach the January launch of the program.

More resources

We will host trainings on how to register for and use the CITSS platform. The first three of these trainings are now open for registration.

CITSS accounts are required in order to participate in the cap-and-invest market, so we strongly encourage anyone who wishes to buy, sell, or trade emissions allowances or offset credits to attend. Sign up using the links below to receive registration confirmation and a link to the trainings.

To make the most of these trainings, we also recommend that you download and review the CITSS Onboarding Resource Packet in advance.

Module 1 User registration	Module 2a Account applications	Module 2b Account applications
Thursday, Oct. 6 2 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.	Tuesday, Oct. 18 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.	Thursday, Oct. 20 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.
All market participants	Covered and Opt-In Entities	General Market Participants
Register for Module 1	Register for Module 2a	Register for Module 2b

You can also sign up to receive updates about additional trainings and other registration information.

Starting in 2023, we'll host four auctions a year, each consisting of a single round of bidding by auction participants. The first auction will take place in the first quarter of 2023. We'll announce the auction date at least 60 days in advance.

Information about the date and time of upcoming auctions will be posted on this page as soon as it is available.

Once our auctions have begun in 2023, we'll provide data to the public about:

Auction settlement prices and results
Auction proceeds
Allowances in each holding account

This information won't be available until after the first auction in the first quarter of 2023. You can check this web page after the auction for market data and sign up to receive auction and trading updates via email.

Contact information

Claire Boyte-White
CCA Communications Specialist
claire.boyte-white@ecy.wa.gov
360-764-6124

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