SB5947 – Creates grant program for sustainable farms and fields.
Prime Sponsor – Senator McCoy (D; 38th District; Snohomish County)
Current status – Referred to the Governor for signature.
Next step would be – Signature by the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2095 is an identical companion bill in the House.

2020 Legislative History –
In the Senate (Passed)
Returned to Senate Rules 3rd Reading by the House at end of 2019 Session; reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session. Passed by the Senate January 15th; referred to the House. Senate concurred in the House changes March 10th.

In the House (Amended version passed)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, & Natural Resources February 7th. Replaced by a striker, amended, and passed out of committee February 28th. Referred to the House Committee on the Capital Budget; had a hearing and passed an amended striker out of committee there on March 2nd. Passed by the House March 4th. Returned to the Senate for possible concurrence.

2019 Legislative History –
In the Senate (Passed)
Referred to Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks. Had a hearing in that committee February 19th. A rewritten substitute bill with minor changes in the content passed out of committee February 21st. Had a hearing in Senate Ways and Means March 1st, and passed out of that committee with amendments. Placed on 2nd Reading by Rules March 4th. Passed the Senate March 6th.
In the House
Referred to the Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, and Natural Resources. Had a hearing in the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, and Natural Resources on March 28th. Still in committee by 2019 cutoff; returned to Senate Rules 3rd Reading by the House at end of 2019 Session.

Comments –
The 2019 substitute bill delays appropriation of any funding except for rule making and the report until January 2020, makes the grant program an option for the Department of Agriculture even if it’s funded, makes its different aspects dependent on appropriated specific funding, and allows grants for some commercial forestry projects including work in areas depleted by fire or pests.

(The original bill made the grants dependent on the provision of available funding for a dedicated account it established, but it seemed to require the Department to develop the program whether or not there was any funding provided for it.)

The 2020 striker in the House committee eliminates any references to reductions of emissions from fossil fuels, water, energy use, and fossil-fuel based herbicides or pesticides; it adds a number of references to encouraging more use of precision agriculture. It shifts the primary responsibility for the program to the Conservation Commission, and increases its ability to shape the program very significantly, by eliminating most of the previous version’s specifications for how the money is to be allocated, how grants are to be awarded, and what they can be awarded for. (There is still a list of allowable uses, but it now concludes with “other equipment purchases or financial assistance deemed appropriate by the Commission”; it does include new limits on how much funding can be spend on developing, advertising, and administering the program.) It uses the previous bill’s specification of the method for estimating carbon storage as a starting point, but lets the Commission change that. It limits the length of carbon storage contracts to twenty-five years, and it requires prioritizing proposals that benefit fish habitat and reducing the priority of any that are expected to significantly damage fish or wildlife habitat.

The amendment makes the bill contingent on the appropriation of at least $400,000 each to the Conservation Commission’s water irrigation efficiencies program; its natural resources investments program; and its shellfish growing area improvement program. The changes in the House Capital Budget Committee replace this provision with one that makes the program dependent on specific appropriation for it, and drop a final section about encouraging cost sharing and prioritizing grants which I think was probably more or less redundant, given language earlier in the bill about that.

Summary –
The bill requires the Department of Agriculture to develop a sustainable farms and fields program to make grants supporting agroforestry; increasing the carbon content of soils; and reducing agricultural uses of water, energy, and of fertilizers and pesticides produced from fossil fuels. There’s no provision in the bill for funding the program, other than providing for an account in the treasury for the program.

Details –

Roughly sixty percent of the funding is to be divided evenly among grants for agroforestry; for carbon sequestration; and for reducing the use of water, energy, and fertilizers and pesticides. Grants can be used for down payments on equipment. The rest of the money is to go to what the Department judges will be the most effective of the remaining projects.

(However, there may not be money for further grants. The Department can also spend up to 20% of the funds on watershed protection projects, research programs or to support the development of new businesses in the state, even if those expenditures would not qualify for program funding otherwise. It can also spend up to 10% of the money on administrative assistance to applicants, up to 5% of it on educational campaigns to publicize the program, and up to 5% of it on administrative costs. During the first five years of the program, up to 5% of the funding can be used in developing methods for prioritizing projects.)

Activities on commercial working forest land, aquaculture and blue carbon projects, and activities other than agroforestry on land that’s in a land retirement program are not eligible for these grants.

The Department’s to consult with other agencies to develop methods for estimating, measuring, and verifying outcomes; and to prioritize awards to try to maximize the reduction in atmospheric greenhouse gases per dollar awarded by leveraging other funding. It’s to estimate these reductions by counting the storage of a ton of carbon dioxide equivalents in soil or standing trees for 100 years as the equivalent of avoiding putting a ton of them into the atmosphere, and by treating storage for lesser periods of time proportionally.

The Department can require applicants to enter into contracts committing them to carry on activities for various periods of time, including in perpetuity, as a condition for receiving funding for a project. They can receive an annual payment for storage during the previous year, or a payment based on expected future storage, with a provision for recovering funding if that doesn’t materialize because they’re negligent.

The Department’s to report to the Legislature on the program every two years.