HB1549 – Specifies requirements for lead agencies’ evaluations of greenhouse gas emissions.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Blake (D; 19th District; Wahkiakum and Pacific counties)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 7th. Reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5561 is an identical companion bill in the Senate.

Summary –

The bill requires the Department of Ecology, in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, to develop a rule limiting agencies’ evaluations of greenhouse gas emissions.

Comments –
As I read the bill, a new source using new technology wouldn’t actually have to demonstrate it would have lower emissions than what it was replacing, or even that it probably would, in order for an agency to have to “accommodate and encourage” the technology in evaluating its emissions. It only has to “intend” to have lower emissions.

I’m not sure what the section that says you can’t require a project to mitigate emissions by more than a proportional share of the State’s greenhouse gas reduction targets is supposed to mean. (If the targets require a 50% reduction by 2050, and you’re building a project in 2037, do you need to reduce your initial proposal’s emissions by 50%?) Whatever the numbers, it seems as if it makes it easy to submit a proposal that doesn’t do much about controlling emissions, and then to cheerfully agree to reduce them by whatever proportion this is, requiring Ecology to approve your project.

Details:

• The rule must establish a threshold below which an action’s direct and indirect emissions of greenhouse gases will not be judged to produce probable, significant adverse impacts;
• It must establish a methodology for determining when the direct and indirect impacts of actions with emissions above that threshold will produce probable adverse impacts;
• It must provide guidance for lead agencies about when it’s appropriate to issue a determination of nonsignificance or a mitigated determination of nonsignificance for an action;
• It must require agencies to evaluate the significance of global life-cycle emissions in the context of global carbon emissions, and the significance of emissions within Washington state in the context of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the state;
• It must acknowledge that significant cumulative impacts caused by other greenhouse gas emissions don’t constitute substantial evidence that a proposed action’s contributions to global emissions are cumulatively significant;
• It must indicate how an agency should evaluate market substitution or displacement effects when assessing the life cycle impacts of an action;
• It must provide guidance for addressing emissions from new sources which specifically accommodates and encourages new technology intended to substitute for or replace
  existing technologies and achieve the same production goals with fewer greenhouse gas emissions;
• It must establish a framework for calculating the direct and indirect emissions it’s reasonable to attribute to an action. That must specify the scope and context for estimating the emissions, including whether to count the global emissions attributable to the action, or only those that will occur within the state. It must authorize agencies to “to incorporate prior environmental review and other inventories that quantify emissions for categories of activities and industries that have been prepared by the Department of Ecology, including those required by section 2 of this act, industry groups, or other lead agencies.” [I’m not sure what this is supposed to mean. Maybe it means they can only use assessments prepared by Ecology, but I think it’s probably supposed to mean they can use assessments by industry groups and other agencies if they choose to.] It must authorize them to rely on adopted policies and regulations of other agencies with regulatory jurisdiction over any direct or indirect emissions of an action to predict emissions and emission trends. [I don’t know if this includes agencies in other states and Federal agencies or not.]
• It must establish a threshold of direct emissions attributable to an action below which agencies may not consider global life-cycle emissions associated with that action;
• It must establish a methodology for agencies to use in identifying reasonable mitigation measures for identified environmental impacts. [Proposals can only be denied if the reasonable measures won’t be sufficient to mitigate the impacts.] This must recognize measures taken by the applicant or others to mitigate the impacts; it must let the agency rely on a range of mitigation measures including market offsets, new technology with lower emissions, alternate fuels, best available control technologies (BACT), potential efficiency measures, and, any other actions or measures required by other agencies with jurisdiction over greenhouse gas emissions that would result in a reduction of the emissions associated with the action. It has to identify acceptable sources for the purchase of offsets. The methodology may not require mitigation in excess of a proportional share of the state’s reduction targets or require mitigation to completely eliminate the impact of an action’s emissions in order to be considered sufficient for approving a proposal.
• It must establish a methodology through which an agency can address impacts of climate change on a proposed action through resiliency and adaptation planning, including site design and other measures to address sea level rise and increased risks from storms and wildfire.

The Department must report to the appropriate legislative committees on the emissions for categories of industries and activities and anticipated trends, as well as how those inventories and trends may be used in environmental reviews.