Category Archives: Buildings 2023

HB1777

HB1777 – Modifying contracting for energy services and equipment by agencies and school districts.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Doglio (D; 22nd District; Olympia)
Current status –  Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology March 14th. Replaced by a striker and passed out of committee March 28th. Had a hearing in Ways and Means March 30th. Amended and passed out of committee April 4th; referred to Rules. Replaced by a striker on the floor and passed by the Senate April 11th. House concurred in Senate amendments.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Changes in the Senate –
The striker would protect certain state jobs and make various other changes which are summarized by staff at the end of it. The amendment in Ways and Means would require performance based contracts to be more cost-effective than alternative available financing and service mechanisms; would no longer transfer equipment back to agencies and schools at no residual value; would require financing terms to end within the manufacturer’s life expectancy for the equipment; and makes a minor adjustment in the scope of required maintenance training. The changes made by the floor striker are summarized by staff at the end of it.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on the Capital Budget February 22th; passed out of committee February 21st, and was referred to Rules. Passed by the House March 1st.

Summary –
The bill would make some minor adjustments to the current laws about state agencies and school districts contracting for energy efficiency services and equipment. It would allow including service payments in these contracts. It would allow the value of energy equipment or services when entering into a contract to exceed the fair market value of property leased or owned by an agency or district, and require that to be considered cost-effective. It would authorize agencies and districts to enter into these contracts independently, not just through the Department of Enterprise Services.

The bill specifies that contracts would have to make the other party responsible for cost-savings and performance guarantees through the terms of the contract, as well as including terms transferring ownership of the equipment to the other party and requiring ownership to be transferred back to the agency or district at no residual value when the contract ended.

The bill would no longer allow school districts to sell energy savings to local utilities or Bonneville directly, though they could still do that through third parties. It would allow them to use financing contracts as well as performance based contracts to do conservation projects, as agencies currently can.

HB1250

HB1250 – Replacing the low-income home rehabilitation revolving loan program with a grant program.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Steele (R; 12th District; North Central Washington) (Co-Sponsor Eslick – R)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Housing March 10th; amended to update the low-income home rehabilitation account’s name in the section on the Treasurer’s trust fund, and passed out of committee March 22nd. Had a hearing in Ways and Means March 28th and passed out of committee April 4th. Referred to Rules and passed by the Senate April 12th. House concurred in Senate amendments.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House – Passed
Scheduled for a hearing in the House Committee on the Capital Budget at 1:30 PM on Thursday February 9th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 16th. Referred to Rules and passed by the House February 28th.

Substitute –
This would raise the maximum grant to $50,000; raise the ceiling on eligible income to 200% of the Area Median Income, and allow the cost of  home rehabilitation to be based on 80% of the appraised value after rehabilitation or 80% of the assessed value.

Summary –
The bill would terminate the current low-income home rehabilitation revolving loan program, forgive any outstanding loan balances, and replace it with a grant program. Grants would now be available to people or households below 80% of area median income for the county or 60% of the state median income, whichever was greater. (The existing program caps eligibility at or below 200% of the Federal poverty level.) The Department of Commerce would be required to contract with rehabilitation agencies to provide home rehabilitation services, and to give preference to local agencies delivering programs and services with similar eligibility criteria.

SB5570

SB5570 – Authorizing electric utilities to establish revolving energy efficiency loan programs.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Lovelett (D; 40th District; Anacortes) (Co-Sponsors Trudeau, Hasegawa, Keiser, Nguyen, Nobles, Pedersen, Randall, Rolfes, Saldaña, Valdez, and C. Wilson – Ds)
Current status – Had a 2023 hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology February 8th. Died in committee at cutoff. Apparently reintroduced in 2024, and had a hearing in that committee January 9th. Amended and passed out of committee that day; referred to Ways & Means.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate 2024 –
There’s a staff summary of the changes made in the amendment.

Summary –
The bill would create an Electric Utility Energy Efficiency Capitalization Grant program in the Department of Commerce, if funds were specifically appropriated for it. Electric utilities would be able to apply to the Department for funding to establish a revolving loan program making loans to low and middle income households for energy efficiency and weatherization projects, including repairs needed to achieve energy savings. A list of participating contractors would be provided as part of the loan application process, and a separate billing system or an on-bill repayment program would be provided. The loans would be interest free and secured with a lien on the property, and priority in awarding them would be given to properties in overburdened areas. The funds would be exempt from the public utility tax, and all loan repayments would have to be deposited into the revolving loan account.

Deferred loans for income-qualified customers owning and occupying their home could cover the full cost of a project. They’d have to allow repayment to be deferred until the home is sold, when the loan balance would be paid as part of the sales transaction; and would have to allow customers to qualify based on their payment history with the utility.

Forgivable loans could be made to property owners with income-qualified tenants. These would require an energy audit of the property. It would have to be continuously occupied by income-qualified tenants for five years after the upgrades; and the owner would have to keep the rent during that period within the fair market rent determined by HUD. If the owner failed to meet those requirements, the loan balance would be transferred to a new loan and become due on the sale of the home.

A utility could contract with a third party to implement the program, and could apply energy savings from cost-effective measures financed through a loan program toward achieving its conservation acquisition targets under the Energy Independence Act.

HB1589

HB1589 – Requiring steps to transition off natural gas.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Doglio (D; 22nd District; Olympia) (Co-sponsor Fitzgibbon – D)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology March 17th. Replaced by a striker, amended twice, and passed out of committee March 28th. Referred to Rules. Sent to the X file April 17th. Reintroduced in House Rules in 2024; passed by the House January 22nd. Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology, and scheduled for a hearing there at 8:00 AM on Wednesday January 31st.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5562 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Changes in the 2023 Senate –
The striker requires a gas company with other 500,000 customers to offer incentives for electrifying to customers using fossil fuels, prohibits incentives for gas appliances or4 equipment other than backups for electric heat pumps, specifies that half the capacity and energy needed to meet CETA’s requirements are to be owned by the utility, removes the provision allowing a utility to earn a rate of return on power purchase agreements, and makes a number of other changes which are summarized by staff at the end of it. The amendments allow extending gas service to residential facilities that only use it for power during emergencies, and make a minor adjustment in the timeline for UTC decisions.

In the House – Passed in 2023
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 6th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 13th. Referred to Rules, replaced on the floor with a striker by the prime sponsor, and passed by the House March 6th.

Changes in the 2023 House –
The changes made in the substitute are summarized by staff in a couple of pages at the beginning of it. They include raising the threshold at which projects require labor standards from $1 million to $10 million, and requiring PSE to meet at least 2% of its annual load with conservation and energy efficiency resources, and to achieve “annual demand response” of at least 10% of its peak summer and winter loads, unless the UTC finds that higher percentages would be cost-effective. The changes made by the striker, which are summarized by staff at the end of it,  exempted certain uses from the ban on new connections, and made many changes to the planning requirements.

Summary –
The bill would prohibit large gas companies serving more than 500,000 customers from providing gas service to new residential and commercial customers after June 30th 2023. (I’m pretty certain that Puget Sound Energy is currently the only company with this many customers.)

Every four years, the bill would require a large gas company to include a gas decarbonization plan for reducing its proportional share of the State’s greenhouse emissions reduction targets as part of its multiyear rate hearings with the Utilities and Transportation Commission. The plan would have to include programs to advance gas decarbonization measures for customers. It would have to prioritize investments that benefited low-income customers, vulnerable populations, and highly impacted communities; programs targeted to them; and outreach plans for engaging with them in every phase of the plan, including through incentives offered to multifamily buildings occupied in full or in part by low-income households. It would be required to include a portfolio of resources using alternative energy to the maximum practicable extent. It would have to meet a cost target which would be 2.5% of its approved revenue for each year of the plan. (It might include leak reductions approved by the commission if they demonstrated emissions reductions, whether or not those would produce the reduction targets in the plan.)

A plan would have to quantify the projected cumulative emissions reductions for each reduction period resulting from each portfolio presented; propose budgets resulting from each of those; quantify the cost of implementing each of them; project the annual emissions reductions that would result if each of them were extended through 2050; and describe the effects of the actions and investments in each one on the safety, reliability, and resilience of the company’s service. A plan would identify potential changes to depreciation schedules or other actions to align the large gas company’s cost recovery with statewide policy goals, including reducing greenhouse emissions, minimizing costs, and minimizing risks to the company and its customers. It would explain the company’s analysis of the costs and benefits of an array of alternatives, including the costs of emissions used in the calculations; describe the monitoring and verification methodology to be used in reporting; and include any other information the UTC required.

Starting in 2026, a combination utility providing both electric service to some customers as well as gas service to over 500,000 customers (ie. PSE) would have to file an electrification plan along with the gas decarbonization plan. It might include demand-side management strategies or transportation electrification plans, but it would have to include programs to advance electrification for customers, programs targeted to low-income customers, vulnerable populations, and highly impacted communities; and outreach plans for engaging with them in every phase of the plan, including through incentives offered to multifamily buildings occupied in full or in part by low-income households. It would have to include budgets; targeted numbers of installations; projected fuel savings; projected cost-effectiveness calculations, including the costs of greenhouse gas emissions and projected reductions in those; and other information deemed relevant by the UTC. It would have to meet the same cost target as the gas decarbonization plan would. It would have to provide documentation and data to show the plan was consistent with maintaining the reliability of the grid; and incentives to facilitate electrification, which might include programs for both new and existing buildings. (Products eligible for incentives would have to be Energy Star certified, if certification for that type of appliance existed.)

The bill would require these companies (ie. PSE) to calculate their reporting to the State about emissions from gas by including methane leaked from its transportation and delivery in distribution and service pipelines from the city gate to customer end use; emissions resulting from the combustion of gas by customers not otherwise subject to federal greenhouse gas emissions reporting (excluding all transport customers); and emissions of methane resulting from leakage in the delivery of gas to other gas companies. They’d have to show their emissions baseline and projected cumulative emissions for the applicable emissions reduction period separately, and would have to show that the total reductions were projected to make progress toward achieving the reduction targets identified in the applicable decarbonization plan.

The UTC might approve, modify, or reject a proposed plan. It would take into account whether a gas decarbonization or electrification plan achieved reductions for each emissions reduction period; whether a plan demonstrated progress toward meeting its targets through maximizing the use of alternative energy resources; whether its investments prioritized serving low-income customers, vulnerable populations, and highly impacted communities; whether it resulted in a reasonable cost to customers; and whether it maintained system reliability. The commission would have to require a large gas company to achieve the maximum level of greenhouse gas emissions reductions practicable using alternative energy resources at or below the applicable cost target. (It might approve, or amend and approve, a gas or electric plan with greater costs if it found that the plan was in the public interest, costs to customers were reasonable, it included mitigation of rate increases for low-income customers, and its benefits including consideration of the costs of greenhouse gas emissions exceeded its costs.

Any combination utility with an electrification plan approved by the Commission would be required to get 40% of the total capacity and energy it needed to meet the requirements of the Clean Energy Transformation Act (aka the cap and invest bill) through power purchase agreements through which it bought energy, capacity, and environmental attributes from “resources” owned and operated by entities that were not affiliated with the utility, and that gave the utility rights to dispatch, operate, and control the resources in the same ways as the utility’s managing its own. [I think this subsection is supposed to read “renewable resources.] (The rest of the needed capacity and energy would have to come from resources owned and operated by the combination utility or an affiliate. Once the UTC approved a power purchase agreement included in an approved electrification plan, the utility would be allowed to set its rates to recover the operating expense of the purchases of “renewable resources” under the agreement as well as earning a return on those expenses at a rate no less than the authorized cost of its debt and no greater than its authorized rate of return. (Apparently, this would mean that customers paid for the profits of the independent power producers developing those projects as well as paying PSE the standard rate of return on those purchases even though it didn’t have any capital invested in the projects.)

The bill would require the UTC to start adopting depreciation schedules for any gas plant a combination utility had in service as part of considering a multiyear rate plan filed by a combination utility. The incremental depreciation for each year of the plan would be 1% of the utility’s gas revenue requirement for the preceding year. If the utility’s rate base for gas operations was less than or equal to 20% of the rate base for its electrical operations, and the utility chose to request the change, the Commission would merge the rate bases supporting gas and electric service in the next multiyear plan and adopt rates supporting recovery of the merged rate base. [I think this last provision means that if PSE’s gas business got small enough it could spread the costs of maintaining the gas system’s infrastructure over all its customers, not just the ones who were still using gas, and including the customers for electricity in the areas where it’s never sold gas .]

The bill would require a large gas company, with over 500,000 customers, to include community workforce agreements or project labor agreements, the payment of area prevailing wages, and apprenticeship utilization requirements in contracts with competitive bidding for projects costing over $1 million. It would encourage any entities providing retail electric service in the state to work with a large gas company providing service within their areas to identify opportunities for electrification and the provision of energy peaking service by the large gas company; to account for the costs of greenhouse gas emissions, set total energy savings and greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals; develop and implement electrification programs in collaboration with large gas companies providing service in their area; and to include an electrification plan or transportation electrification program as part of a clean energy plan.

HB1391

HB1391 – Creating a state-wide building energy upgrade assistance program.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Ramel (D; 40th District; Anacortes and San Juans) (Co-sponsors Doglio, Duerr, Berry, Pollet, Reed – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology March 22nd and 24th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House – Passed
Completed a continued hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy January 31st. Replaced by a substitute by the prime sponsor and passed out of committee February 9th. Referred to Appropriations, had a hearing there February 21st, was replaced by a second substitute, amended, and passed out of committee February 23rd. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House February 28th.

Substitute –
There’s a staff summary of the changes made by the substitute at the beginning of it. The second substitute specified that the program would have to include resources for renters and that its energy efficiency projects did not have to include weatherization; the amendment would make the bill null and void if it wasn’t funded in the budget.

Summary –
The bill would authorize the Department of Ecology to create a statewide building energy upgrade navigator program, in collaboration with the WSU Energy Office. The program would provide a statewide resource to assist building owners with electrification services and energy efficiency services and with funding for those, as well as providing other assistance in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, job creation, business opportunities, and workforce development in the sector. By March 1st, 2024, Ecology would be obliged to contract with an administrator or administrators, selected through a competitive process, to implement the program. Contracts could not be for more than five years, and would have to include sufficient performance metrics to let the department and the Legislature evaluate the program’s energy savings, greenhouse gas emissions reductions, consumer cost savings, wage and employment impacts, and customer satisfaction. The bill would convene a technical advisory group including a representative from each of a list of stakeholders to provide ongoing guidance to the program, including recommendations on continuously improving and growing it, addressing any gaps in its design and implementation, addressing split incentives, and incorporating the Department of Health’s environmental health disparities mapping tool into its work. The advisory group would provide an annual report on the program’s progress to the Legislature.

The program would have to provide outreach and deliver energy services to owner-occupied and rental residences, commercial buildings under 20,000 square feet; and single and multifamily dwellings. It would support energy efficient and emissions reductions alternatives for all types of fuel, and strive to cover all regions of the state. It would prioritize services to low-income households, vulnerable populations, and overburdened communities, including tribal communities, having considered recommendations of the UTC’s natural gas decarbonization study. It might dedicate some of its funding for these services. It would support accessible administration of programs authorized under the Inflation Reduction Act, and the integrated implementation of all relevant clean buildings programs funded by the state budget, including several currently described in the 2023 House Omnibus Appropriations Bills. It would implement a process in coordination with the Office of Minority and Women’s Business Enterprises to help customers find qualified energy contractors, including considering whether they met the program’s labor standards and reporting requirements.

The program’s outreach to customers would have to include creating and maintaining updated educational and marketing materials, including advice about all relevant funds and
financial assistance available from Federal, State, local, and energy utility programs. (It would be required to focus on this outreach about funding first.) It would also provide assistance with performing energy audits to provide recommendations to customers on a wide range of cost-effective energy and health improvements, including weatherization, appliance upgrades, electrification, smart meters, solar photovoltaic panels and other on-site sources of renewable energy, electric vehicle charging; and smart thermostats. It would provide community outreach in collaboration with Ecology’s programs to reach and serve underserved communities.

The program’s energy services for customers would have to include help in finding qualified contractors to implement audit recommendations; recommendations for programs that customers might be eligible for based on their income, and assistance with securing financing. Program administrators would have to develop community workforce agreements between labor representatives and contractors for the work performed on projects funded by the program, considering the size and complexity of projects, number of trades and crafts anticipated to be used, the availability of trained and skilled workers, and the location of projects. Any community workforce agreement would have to establish goals for labor hours or percentages of work to be performed by underrepresented groups, by local residents, and by state registered apprentices. They’d have to specify that workers performing work on projects under a community workforce agreement were paid a wage rate that was at least equivalent to the prevailing wage rate of workers, laborers, or mechanics in the same trade or occupation in the locality in which the work was being performed.

The program would also identify statewide workforce and contractor training needs and develop training. It might directly administer incentives and rebates for programs when directed to do that by Ecology, but would not provide any financial or technical assistance for projects including installation of new fossil fuel appliances. The administrator might develop a database portal to identify and track the locations of services provided, customer interactions, and performance metrics for completed work.

Ecology would provide a report on the program to the Legislature every other year, covering the implementation of the navigator program and community workforce agreements. It would include details on the monetary, greenhouse gas, and energy savings achieved; the savings to investment ratio achieved for customers; the wage levels of jobs created; the utilization of state registered preapprentice and apprenticeship programs; the efficiency and speed of delivery of services; and the public health benefits, including indoor and outdoor air quality improvements and increased access to cooling for climate resilience. It would also have to include recommendations for additional energy efficiency, electrification, and distributed energy programs for customers to maximize deployment of energy efficiency services, and to achieve higher rates of penetration and economies of scale through implementing multiple measures simultaneously.

HB1433

HB1433 – Adopting a standard method for use in programs for the energy labeling of existing residential buildings.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Duerr (D; 1st District; Bothell) (Co-Sponsors Ramel, Fitzgibbon, Berry, Reed, and Doglio – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology March 22nd and March 24th. 2nd Substitute returned to the House Committee on Environment and Energy for the 2024 Session. Amended to make labeling a local option and remove the licensing of home energy assessors; passed out of committee January 18th. Referred to Rules.
Next step would be – Action by the Rules Committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House 2024 – Passed
There’s a staff summary of the changes made in the Energy & Environment.

In the House 2023 – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy January 24th; replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 2nd. Referred to Appropriations, and had a hearing there February 13th. Replaced by a second substitute and passed out of Appropriations February 21st. Referred to Rules and passed by the House March 1st.

Substitutes –
This extended various deadlines by a year or eighteen months and specified that score reports to Commerce wouldn’t include the addresses of individual residences or the owner’s names. The second substitute in Appropriations made a few minor changes, and removed the language specifying that nothing in the bill prohibited jurisdictions requiring HERS scores at time of sale, or prohibiting requiring them as a condition for receiving efficiency incentives from Commerce.

Summary –
The bill would require the Department of Commerce to create rules for using the US Department of Energy’s Home Energy Scores as the primary system for assigning residential buildings scores evaluating their energy efficiency. (These DOE scores are based on an assessment of the building’s characteristics by a trained and certified rater, rather than on the energy used by its current occupants.) Cities and counties could promote or administer home energy score programs, require a score when a residential building is advertised for sale; or require a score to be eligible for Commerce’s financial incentives for efficiency improvements, but the bill itself wouldn’t require buildings to have scores.

The report on a building would have to include its home energy score, on a relative scale of one to 10, with 10 being best; its energy use per year by fuel type; the unit prices for each fuel used to calculate energy costs;  the kilowatt hours per year of renewable energy it generated, if there were any; the annual cost of energy by fuel type and altogether; and its estimated current carbon emissions in tons/per year, which  would have to be shown on a  graphic scale from zero to 15 so a reader could visualize how a building compared to the worst and best possible greenhouse gas outcomes.

The report would also have to include itemized recommendations for priority energy saving improvements that had an expected payback of 10 years or less, as well as for additional improvements. (Recommendations might include upgrades to windows, and wall, roof, attic, and floor insulation.) The report would estimate the home energy score and the expected annual reduction in energy bills after itemized priority improvements were completed. (Reports would also include the building’s floor area, address, and year of construction; the date of the assessment; the assessor’s name, contact information, license number, and employer; a statement indicating that the report met Washington state standards for energy score assessments; and other energy efficiency and green building certifications for which the building had qualified.)

The Department of Licensing would create requirements for licensing home energy assessors by December 31st, 2023, and they would have to be licensed by the next September. (I’m not sure whether the bill’s language would require someone doing assessments using some other system to have a license or not.) The requirements for a license would include standards for training, including provisions for recognizing training provided by other organizations, as well as standards of professional conduct, practice, and ethics.

HB1404

HB1404 – Altering the State Building Code Council’s procedures and authority. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Goehner (R; 12th District; Chelan) (Co-Sponsors Chapman – D; Corry, Jacobsen, Griffey, Rude, Couture, Christian, Cheney – Rs)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Local Government. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5117 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Summary –
The bill would create a variety of new procedural rules for the Council. It would be required to discard any proposal that doesn’t include all the requested information, doesn’t have sufficient detail to be acted upon as of a deadline the Council sets, or that “exceeds the specific delegation of authority provided by the Legislature”. (It would not be allowed to rely solely on the broad delegation of authority in the current law.) A member of the Council would have to sponsor a proposal for it to move forward. The proposed text would have to be put in the Code Reviser’s format for finalized rules, and any proposed changes to that would have to be in writing, specify the legal authority for the amendment, and be available to all councilmembers and the public before a vote on a change could be taken. (The current process, in which members discuss and agree to many adjustments in phrasing and details in a draft during one or more meetings, would be explicitly prohibited.) The Council would be required to adopt policies to ensure it adheres to all of the requirements for rule making in the Administrative Procedures Act.

The bill says that if there’s “a concern” that the information provided in a proposal isn’t sufficient, inaccurately represents the actual impacts or costs, or if the assertions in the proposal “are questioned” by experts with knowledge of the industry or circumstances the Council “should” supplement the cost estimate information provided in a petition with independent research. At least two weeks before final adoption of nonemergency changes to the Code, the Council would have to make available for public comment:
(1) the currently required small business economic impact statement;
(2) the currently required cost-benefit analysis and the supporting information, for members to determine if the proposed rule is the least burdensome alternative for those required to comply with it and if the probable benefits of the rule are greater than its probable costs;
(3) any independent, third-party analysis the Council commissioned;
(4) any supplemental cost estimate information and industry specific information provided in the process; and,
(5) any findings, determinations or recommendations of the Council’s economic impact work group, consultants, or employees.
The bill says all this information should be available for review and vetted by Council members prior to a final vote adopting any rule modification. If someone working in an industry subject to regulation under a proposed rule raised an economic or cost-related protest or provided a cost or economic analysis that was different, the protestor could request that the Council provide a substantive response to raised concerns, including an explanation of provisions in the rule addressing, mitigating, or reducing the cost or economic impacts of the rule.

The bill would specify various criteria for appointments to technical advisory groups. If a member represented a specific interest or group, it would allow any person of that group to petition the Council to have that member removed from the TAG on the grounds that the person doesn’t have the qualifications or characteristics necessary to represent the interest or group. The Council would be required to remove any technical advisory group member it found lacked the characteristics and qualifications necessary to fill the position.

The Council would be required to identify the sources of information it reviewed and relied upon in the course of adopting changes to the Code, to include that information in the rule-making file, and to post the materials it considered or relied upon on its website for at least a year. It would be required to create a distribution list to notify specified agencies about proposed rules and the associated materials before public hearings on them. It would also be required to notify individuals involved in providing state subsidized housing that the proposed rule would increase the cost and complexity of building construction and identify when public comment will be taken. If a proposal would change the design of school buildings, OSPI would have to be notified. Every three years, the Council would have to submit a report to the Legislature identifying provisions in the adopted codes that generated conflict, summarizing the different perspectives brought before the Council related to the conflict, and how the Council addressed it.

The bill would make the appointment of the managing director of the Council subject to confirmation by the Senate, and prohibit anyone registered as a lobbyist from serving on it. It would add a representative from a utility to the Council. It would require training on ethics in public service and the Council’s rules of procedure for anyone serving on it.

HB1390

HB1390 – Decarbonization planning for state-owned district energy systems.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Ramel (D; 40th District; Anacortes and San Juans) (Co-Sponsors Berry, Duerr, Doglio, and Pollet – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology March 22nd and 24th. Amended to direct the owner of a covered district heating system to consult with the gas utility as well as the electric utility while developing a decarbonization plan, and passed out of committee March 28th. Had a hearing in Ways and Means March 30th. Passed out of committee April 4th and referred to Rules. Passed by the Senate April 12th. House concurred in Senate’s amendments.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy January 24th. Replaced with a substitute by the prime sponsor and passed out of committee February 9th. Referred to the Committee on the Capital Budget and had a hearing there February 20th. Amended to have more State systems and purely private systems comply with CETA by developing these plans. Passed out of committee February 22nd, referred to Rules, and passed by the House March 2nd.

Substitute –
The changes made by the substitute are summarized by staff at the beginning of it.

Summary –
The bill would require collections of five or more buildings with more than 100,000 square feet of conditioned space that are owned by the state and served by district heating or cooling systems to develop a decarbonization plan. These would have to include ways to replace fossil fuels in heating plants; evaluating options for partnering with nearby sources and uses of waste heat and cooling; examining opportunities to add buildings or other facilities to the system once it is decarbonized, a strategy to incentivize growth of a decarbonized system, and requirements for facilities joining the system; and evaluating the potential for reducing energy use through conservation. The bill would encourage including consideration of distribution network upgrades; on-site energy storage; space cooling for residential facilities; labor and workforce issues, including utilization of state registered apprentices; options for public-private partnerships; and the incorporation of industrial symbiosis projects or networks. The local utility would have to be consulted in the development of the plan; they’d be due to Commerce by June 30th, 2025.

The bill would exempt the buildings served by one of these systems from making any capital investments that might be required to meet the State’s Clean Buildings Act’s energy performance requirements if the owner was implementing or had fully implemented a decarbonization plan, and met the Act’s benchmarking, energy management, and operations and maintenance planning requirements. (The bill also says owners may not be required to make capital investments if they submit a request to Commerce once during every five-year compliance cycle as part of documentation required by the Act, and Commerce approves the request; it doesn’t seem to specify any criteria for granting or denying these requests.) Commerce would also guarantee that these systems would be considered to qualify with any requirements for implementing energy efficiency measures identified by an energy audit if an audit had demonstrated that the energy savings from measures to increase the efficiency of the district heating system would be greater than the savings from measures to increase the buildings’ efficiency, and the owner implemented the measures for the system.

SB5391

SB5391 – Requiring environmental reporting on materials for public construction. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Senator Van De Wege (D; 24th District; Sequim) (Co-Sponsors Schoesler – R, Mullet- D)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology January 27th. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1342 is a companion bill in the House.

Comments –
Compare HB1282 and its companion bill…

Summary –
The bill would create requirements for the modeling, measurement, and reporting of embodied carbon emission reductions from structural concrete, reinforcing and structural steel, and engineered wood in state-funded projects, including municipal projects and Department of Transportation contracts. (Buildings under 50,000 sq. ft. wouldn’t be included. )

Designers would have to do life-cycle assessments over 60 years of the embodied carbon in materials they decided were eligible for a project, after considering its requirements, including “project program, financial budget, construction schedule, product availability, and overall constructability.”

Beginning in 2025, the successful bidder for a project would have to submit environmental project declarations for at least 90% of the covered structural materials by weight or volume to the contractor at least a month before the substantial completion of the project. The contractor would be required to forward those to the authority that had awarded the contract and the Department of Commerce. After January 1st, 2027 the process would include submitting these to the contractor when the bid was submitted, and updating the information about the declarations and the actual quantities used before substantial completion.

The project designer or its life-cycle assessment consultant would be required to calculate a baseline estimate of the industry average for embodied carbon emissions in the project’s eligible products, using the emissions intensity factors in the most recently published environmental product declarations, and to include those in the construction specifications used for bidding those eligible products. (If there weren’t published regional or national industry-average environmental declarations for a product, they’d need to use verifiable data from a life-cycle analysis practitioner to estimate the baseline.) When the project was completed, they’d do an estimate of the embodied carbon in the actual products and quantities used in it, and then calculate and report an embodied carbon reduction percentage comparing the actual embodied carbon to what it would have been if industry average materials had been used. They’d also estimate and report the carbon intensity of the project, as a ratio of the kilograms of CO2 equivalents in the covered structural materials to the area of the project in square meters.

Commerce would have to create a new public database to inform project stakeholders of the achievable reductions in embodied carbon for specific markets, products and structural systems, and to inform future reduction targets and stretch goals. The database would include names and types of project, the awarding authority; project dates and zip codes, the type of eligible products in the project; the primary eligible products and primary types of structural systems actually used; a summary of the life-cycle assessment of the structural systems with the range of possible outcomes disclosed; the gross project area, excluding the site outside a building’s footprint; the project’s embodied carbon emissions as calculated with estimated quantities prior to bidding, and the estimate of those with with actual quantities at substantial completion; its estimated embodied carbon intensity prior to bidding; its as-built embodied carbon emissions, embodied carbon reduction percentage; and embodied carbon intensity; and a few other details.

The bill would also require the Department of Commerce to reimburse Washington manufacturers for half the costs of producing environmental product declarations, with limits of $15,000 per manufacturing location or batch plant and $45,000 for each manufacturer and associated companies. (They’d have to be product-specific, third-party reviewed, and completed by the end of 2025 to qualify.)

HB1342

HB1342 – Requiring environmental reporting on materials for public construction. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Steele (R; 12th District; Chelan) (Co-Sponsors Stokesbary – R; Leavitt & Lekanoff – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on the Capital Budget February 2nd. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB 5391 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
Compare HB1282 and its companion bill…

Summary –
The bill would create requirements for the modeling, measurement, and reporting of embodied carbon emission reductions from structural concrete, reinforcing and structural steel, and engineered wood in state-funded projects, including municipal projects and Department of Transportation contracts. (Buildings under 50,000 sq. ft. wouldn’t be included. )

Designers would have to do life-cycle assessments over 60 years of the embodied carbon in materials they decided were eligible for a project, after considering its requirements, including “project program, financial budget, construction schedule, product availability, and overall constructability.”

Beginning in 2025, the successful bidder for a project would have to submit environmental project declarations for at least 90% of the covered structural materials by weight or volume to the contractor at least a month before the substantial completion of the project. The contractor would be required to forward those to the authority that had awarded the contract and the Department of Commerce. After January 1st, 2027 the process would include submitting these to the contractor when the bid was submitted, and updating the information about the declarations and the actual quantities used before substantial completion.

The project designer or its life-cycle assessment consultant would be required to calculate a baseline estimate of the industry average for embodied carbon emissions in the project’s eligible products, using the emissions intensity factors in the most recently published environmental product declarations, and to include those in the construction specifications used for bidding those eligible products. (If there weren’t published regional or national industry-average environmental declarations for a product, they’d need to use verifiable data from a life-cycle analysis practitioner to estimate the baseline.) When the project was completed, they’d do an estimate of the embodied carbon in the actual products and quantities used in it, and then calculate and report an embodied carbon reduction percentage comparing the actual embodied carbon to what it would have been if industry average materials had been used. They’d also estimate and report the carbon intensity of the project, as a ratio of the kilograms of CO2 equivalents in the covered structural materials to the area of the project in square meters.

Commerce would have to create a new public database to inform project stakeholders of the achievable reductions in embodied carbon for specific markets, products and structural systems, and to inform future reduction targets and stretch goals. The database would include names and types of project, the awarding authority; project dates and zip codes, the type of eligible products in the project; the primary eligible products and primary types of structural systems actually used; a summary of the life-cycle assessment of the structural systems with the range of possible outcomes disclosed; the gross project area, excluding the site outside a building’s footprint; the project’s embodied carbon emissions as calculated with estimated quantities prior to bidding, and the estimate of those with with actual quantities at substantial completion; its estimated embodied carbon intensity prior to bidding; its as-built embodied carbon emissions, embodied carbon reduction percentage; and embodied carbon intensity; and a few other details.

The bill would also require the Department of Commerce to reimburse Washington manufacturers for half the costs of producing environmental product declarations, with limits of $15,000 per manufacturing location or batch plant and $45,000 for each manufacturer and associated companies. (They’d have to be product-specific, third-party reviewed, and completed by the end of 2025 to qualify.)

SB5345

SB5345 – Exempting school districts from the Clean Buildings Act’s energy performance standards. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Senator Schoesler (R; 9th District; SE Washington) (Co-Sponsors Padden, Dozier, Fortunato, Short, Braun, Wagoner, Warnick, Torres, and Lynda Wilson – Rs)
Current status – Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would exempt public school buildings from the energy performance requirements of the State’s Clean Buildings Act if:
1) They were in a district in which half or more of enrolled children had qualified for free or reduced-price lunch in any of the previous five years, or,
2) The district had a state funding assistance percentage of 50 percent or more in any of the previous five years, or,
3) The district “uses or purchases electricity generated from renewable resources or nonemitting electric generation electricity.”

Since I think every district in the state uses or purchases at least some electricity generated by hydropower or other nonemitting resources, the current bill would apparently exempt all public school buildings from the requirements.

SB5322

SB5322 – Requiring environmental and labor reporting on materials for public building construction and renovation.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Wellman (D; 41st District; Mercer Island) (Co-Sponsors Hasegawa, Keiser, Valdez, Claire Wilson – Ds)
(By request of the Department of Commerce.)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on State Government & Elections January 27th, and passed out of committee that day. Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology January 31st. Replaced by a substitute making some minor changes and passed out of committee February 10th. Referred to Ways & Means, and had a hearing there on February 22nd.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1282 is a companion bill in the House.

Comments –
This is a somewhat revised version of Senator Stanford’s SB5366, which was introduced in 2021 and then in 2022 as a companion bill to Representative Duerr’s bills in those sessions, but wasn’t heard.

Substitute –
There’s a staff summary of the minor changes in the substitute at the beginning of it.

Summary –
The bill would require public institutions of higher educations’ and state agencies’ contracts for construction and renovation projects to require reports of environmental information by cost of certain construction materials for buildings over 50,000 sq.ft., and additional information about labor standards in producing the materials for buildings over 100,000 sq ft. It would cover structural concrete, reinforcing and structural steel, and engineered wood products; they’d be due before substantial completion of a project. Firms that were selected for projects would have to provide data on quantities of covered products, current environmental product declarations for at least 90% of the value of those; any completed health product declarations; manufacturers’ names and locations; any supplier codes of conduct, and any certifications of firms by the Office of Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises. They’d have to ask their suppliers of each covered product in the larger projects for the names and locations of the actual production facilities and a specified report on working conditions for all employees at those, or the steps taken to reasonably obtain that data. (However, they wouldn’t be required to verify any information provided by suppliers, and they’d be exempted from requesting information about working conditions that would cause a significant delay in completion, a significant increase in overall project cost, or result in only one supplier being able to provide the product.)

By July 1, 2024, specifications for a project contract would only be allowed to include performance-based specifications for structural concrete unless that wasn’t practicable. The bill would continue the public database of provided data that was funded in the 2021-2023 budget, and publish the global warming potentials reported in the environmental product declarations. Commerce would have to further elaborate covered product definitions; develop measurement and reporting standards to ensure that data was consistent and comparable; as well as creating model language for specifications, bid documents, and contracts to support the implementation of the reporting requirements. The department would also produce an educational brief providing an overview of embodied carbon; describing the appropriate use of environmental product declarations, including the preconditions needed for them to be comparable; outlining reporting standards, including covered product definitions, standards for reporting quantities, and working conditions; describing the data collection and reporting required by the bill; providing instructions for the use of the database; and listing applicable product category rules for covered products.

If funds were appropriated for it, the Department of Commerce would be authorized to provide financial assistance to small businesses to help offset the costs of producing environmental product declarations and reducing embodied carbon in the built environment, while ensuring they weren’t put at a competitive disadvantage in state contracting as a result of the bill’s requirements.

It would require Commerce to convene a Buy Clean and Buy Fair workgroup with representatives from a specified list of stakeholders to identify opportunities for and barriers to growing the use and production of low carbon materials, promoting high labor standards in manufacturing, and preserving and expanding low carbon materials manufacturing in the state. The group would consider state and domestic supply of raw materials and other supply chain challenges, regulatory barriers, competitiveness of local and domestic manufacturers, costs, and data availability from local, state, national, and foreign product suppliers. It would identify opportunities to encourage the continued conversion to lower carbon cements. By September 2025, it would submit a report on policy recommendations to the Legislature and the Governor. The report would summarize data collected through the bill and other previous projects, make recommendations for improving environmental production declaration data quality and for ways of mitigating Scope 2 emissions through green power purchases, identify barriers and opportunities to the effective use of the database and collected data, and survey the regulatory landscape to identify areas of alignment and discrepancy between local, state, federal, and private policy on embodied carbon and identify opportunities to promote consistency across policies, rules, and regulations.

HB1282

HB1282 – Requiring environmental and labor reporting on materials for public building construction and renovation.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Duerr (D; 11th District; Bothell) (Co-Sponsor Hackney – D)
(By request of the Department of Commerce.)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology March 15th, replaced by a striker and passed out of committee March 21st. Had a hearing in Ways and Means March 28th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5322 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
This is a somewhat revised version of Representative Duerr’s HB1103, which was introduced in 2021, and then reintroduced in Appropriations in 2022.
See also HB1342 in this session.

Changes in the Senate –
The striker changed the number of labor representatives in the work group from one to three and made a number of other minor changes that are summarized by staff at the end of it.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Capital Budget February 2nd; replaced by a  substitute making some small changes which are summarized by staff at the beginning of it, and passed out of committee February 16th. Referred to Rules; replaced by a striker on the floor that removed the requirement for reporting wood sourcing information and made some other small changes that are summarized by staff at the end of that; and passed by the House March 8th.

Summary –
The bill would require public institutions of higher educations’ and state agencies’ contracts for construction and renovation projects to require reports of environmental information by cost of certain construction materials for buildings over 50,000 sq.ft., and additional information about labor standards in producing the materials for buildings over 100,000 sq ft. It would cover structural concrete, reinforcing and structural steel, and engineered wood products; they’d be due before substantial completion of a project. Firms that were selected for projects would have to provide data on quantities of covered products, current environmental product declarations for at least 90% of the value of those; any completed health product declarations; manufacturers’ names and locations; any supplier codes of conduct, and any certifications of firms by the Office of Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises. They’d have to ask their suppliers of each covered product in the larger projects for the names and locations of the actual production facilities and a specified report on working conditions for all employees at those, or the steps taken to reasonably obtain that data. (However, they wouldn’t be required to verify any information provided by suppliers, and they’d be exempted from requesting information about working conditions that would cause a significant delay in completion, a significant increase in overall project cost, or result in only one supplier being able to provide the product.)

By July 1, 2024, specifications for a project contract would only be allowed to include performance-based specifications for structural concrete unless that wasn’t practicable. The bill would continue the public database of provided data that was funded in the 2021-2023 budget, and publish the global warming potentials reported in the environmental product declarations. Commerce would have to further elaborate covered product definitions; develop measurement and reporting standards to ensure that data was consistent and comparable; as well as creating model language for specifications, bid documents, and contracts to support the implementation of the reporting requirements. The department would also produce an educational brief providing an overview of embodied carbon; describing the appropriate use of environmental product declarations, including the preconditions needed for them to be comparable; outlining reporting standards, including covered product definitions, standards for reporting quantities, and working conditions; describing the data collection and reporting required by the bill; providing instructions for the use of the database; and listing applicable product category rules for covered products.

If funds were appropriated for it, the Department of Commerce would be authorized to provide financial assistance to small businesses to help offset the costs of producing environmental product declarations and reducing embodied carbon in the built environment, while ensuring they weren’t put at a competitive disadvantage in state contracting as a result of the bill’s requirements.

It would require Commerce to convene a Buy Clean and Buy Fair workgroup with representatives from a specified list of stakeholders to identify opportunities for and barriers to growing the use and production of low carbon materials, promoting high labor standards in manufacturing, and preserving and expanding low carbon materials manufacturing in the state. The group would consider state and domestic supply of raw materials and other supply chain challenges, regulatory barriers, competitiveness of local and domestic manufacturers, costs, and data availability from local, state, national, and foreign product suppliers. It would identify opportunities to encourage the continued conversion to lower carbon cements. By September 2025, it would submit a report on policy recommendations to the Legislature and the Governor. The report would summarize data collected through the bill and other previous projects, make recommendations for improving environmental production declaration data quality and for ways of mitigating Scope 2 emissions through green power purchases, identify barriers and opportunities to the effective use of the database and collected data, and survey the regulatory landscape to identify areas of alignment and discrepancy between local, state, federal, and private policy on embodied carbon and identify opportunities to promote consistency across policies, rules, and regulations.

SB5312

SB5312 – Creates a residential property assessed clean energy and resiliency (R-PACER) program. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Senator Lovelett (D; 40th District; Anacortes) (Co-Sponsor Jeff Wilson – R)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Local Government, Land Use & Tribal Affairs January 31st. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would create a residential property assessed clean energy and resiliency program (an R-PACER program) that jurisdictions could choose to implement. These would allow loans for improvements to be repaid through a lien on the property assigned to a capital provider; the obligation to repay the debt would remain with the property if ownership was transferred. They’d be available to owners of single-family residences, and multifamily residential properties with four or fewer dwelling units, for improvements including energy efficiency, water conservation, clean and renewable energy, and resiliency projects. (The state has already established a C-PACER program for commercial property.)

Counties could choose to participate in a statewide program that the Department of Commerce would establish, or create their own programs. Programs might make any services the program may chose to offer to property owners, such as estimating energy savings, overseeing project development, or evaluating alternative equipment installations, priced separately and open to purchase by the property owner from qualified third-party providers; make properties participating available for offers of impartial terms from qualifying third-party capital providers; allow financial underwriting and evaluation to be performed by capital providers; and work in a collaborative process with capital providers and other stakeholders to develop the program.

Programs would be required to set uniform criteria for determining whether projects qualified for the loans, including determining if investments would reduce greenhouse gas emissions; reduce energy demand or replace nonrenewable energy with renewable energy; be appropriate to meet seismic risks; reduce stormwater or pollution to provide significant public benefit; or reduce the risk of wildfire, flooding, or other disasters. There are detailed requirements for creating guidebooks about programs. Loans could cover fees and interest as well as the costs of material and labor. Commerce would be authorized to provide grants to counties to assist in developing and implementing programs.

Applicants would have to demonstrate that a project would provide a public benefit in the form of energy or water resource conservation, reduced public health risk, or reduced public emergency response risk. If energy or water usage improvements were proposed for existing buildings, a licensed professional engineer, registered architect, or other professional would have to certify that the proposed improvements would result in more efficient use or conservation of energy or water, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the addition of renewable sources of energy or water; or result in improved resilience. For new construction, a professional would have to certify that the proposed improvements would enable the project to exceed the energy efficiency, water efficiency, renewable energy or renewable water, or resilience requirements of the current building code. Programs could charge an application fee to cover the costs of establishing and conducting the application review process. Applicants would have to provide written verification, as defined in the guidebook, stating that projects were properly completed and operating as intended.

The bill includes procedures counties would follow in adopting a program and in recording liens, and detailed provisions about the legal status of the liens and provisions for enforcing them without the direct involvement of the counties, designed to avoid potential conflicts with the Washington Constitution’s provisions.

HB1193

HB1183 – Prohibiting the Building Code Council from restricting the use of natural gas or natural gas appliances in residential construction. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Dye (R; 9th District; Southeast Washington) (Co-Sponsors Goehner & Corry – Rs)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Environment & Energy. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would prohibit the State Building Code Council from restricting the use of natural gas or natural gas appliances in residential construction unless the Legislature had explicitly authorized such a restriction. It would remove helping to “achieve the broader goal of building zero fossil-fuel greenhouse gas emission homes and buildings” from the list of the Legislature’s standards the Council “shall follow” in developing the Energy Code. It would specify that the current requirement that the Energy Code must achieve a 70 percent reduction in annual net energy consumption from the 2006 Code by 2031 does not authorize the Council to consider greenhouse gas emissions in any decisions adopting standards or requirements. It specifies that the legislation establishing the State’s limits for greenhouse gas reduction does not create any authority for the Council to rely on or consider those limits in developing the building code or the energy code. It prohibits the Council from adopting any rules to implement the provisions of the 2021 Code that limit the use of natural gas in buildings or that favor the use of electric appliances over natural gas appliances in buildings. (It actually would also no longer allow the Council to adopt minimum performance standards and requirements for construction and materials, consistent with accepted standards of engineering, fire and life safety; or for making buildings accessible to and usable by physically disabled persons.)

SB5117

SB5117 – Altering the State Building Code Council’s procedures and authority. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Senator Lynda Wilson (R; 17th District; Vancouver)
Current status – Referred to the Senate Committee on State Government & Elections. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1404 is a companion bill in the House.

Summary –
The bill would create a variety of new procedural rules for the Council. It would be required to discard any proposal that doesn’t include all the requested information, doesn’t have sufficient detail to be acted upon as of a deadline the Council sets, or that “exceeds the specific delegation of authority provided by the Legislature”. (It would not be allowed to rely solely on the broad delegation of authority in the current law.) A member of the Council would have to sponsor a proposal for it to move forward. The proposed text would have to be put in the Code Reviser’s format for finalized rules, and any proposed changes to that would have to be in writing, specify the legal authority for the amendment, and be available to all councilmembers and the public before a vote on a change could be taken. (The current process, in which members discuss and agree to many adjustments in phrasing and details in a draft during one or more meetings, would be explicitly prohibited.) The Council would be required to adopt policies to ensure it adheres to all of the requirements for rule making in the Administrative Procedures Act.

The bill says that if there’s “a concern” that the information provided in a proposal isn’t sufficient, inaccurately represents the actual impacts or costs, or if the assertions in the proposal “are questioned” by experts with knowledge of the industry or circumstances the Council “should” supplement the cost estimate information provided in a petition with independent research. At least two weeks before final adoption of nonemergency changes to the Code, the Council would have to make available for public comment:
(1) the currently required small business economic impact statement;
(2) the currently required cost-benefit analysis and the supporting information, for members to determine if the proposed rule is the least burdensome alternative for those required to comply with it and if the probable benefits of the rule are greater than its probable costs;
(3) any independent, third-party analysis the Council commissioned;
(4) any supplemental cost estimate information and industry specific information provided in the process; and,
(5) any findings, determinations or recommendations of the Council’s economic impact work group, consultants, or employees.
The bill says all this information should be available for review and vetted by Council members prior to a final vote adopting any rule modification. If someone working in an industry subject to regulation under a proposed rule raised an economic or cost-related protest or provided a cost or economic analysis that was different, the protestor could request that the Council provide a substantive response to raised concerns, including an explanation of provisions in the rule addressing, mitigating, or reducing the cost or economic impacts of the rule.

The bill would specify various criteria for appointments to technical advisory groups. If a member represented a specific interest or group, it would allow any person of that group to petition the Council to have that member removed from the TAG on the grounds that the person doesn’t have the qualifications or characteristics necessary to represent the interest or group. The Council would be required to remove any technical advisory group member it found lacked the characteristics and qualifications necessary to fill the position.

The Council would be required to identify the sources of information it reviewed and relied upon in the course of adopting changes to the Code, to include that information in the rule-making file, and to post the materials it considered or relied upon on its website for at least a year. It would be required to create a distribution list to notify specified agencies about proposed rules and the associated materials before public hearings on them. It would also be required to notify individuals involved in providing state subsidized housing that the proposed rule would increase the cost and complexity of building construction and identify when public comment will be taken. If a proposal would change the design of school buildings, OSPI would have to be notified. Every three years, the Council would have to submit a report to the Legislature identifying provisions in the adopted codes that generated conflict, summarizing the different perspectives brought before the Council related to the conflict, and how the Council addressed it.

The bill would make the appointment of the managing director of the Council subject to confirmation by the Senate, and prohibit anyone registered as a lobbyist from serving on it. It would add a representative from a utility to the Council. It would require training on ethics in public service and the Council’s rules of procedure for anyone serving on it.

SB5057

SB5057 – Delaying the building performance standards by two years, and creating a work group on their financial impacts and building efficiency policy. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Senator Mullet (D; 5th District; Issaquah) (Co-sponsor Schoesler – R)
Current status – Had a hearing January 27th in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology. Replaced by a substitute, amended, and passed out of committee February 17th. Referred to Ways and Means, and had a hearing there on February 22nd. Passed out of committee February 24th and referred to Rules. Sent to the X file March 10th.
Next step would be – Dead.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Substitute –
This reduces the delays in compliance for large buildings to one year, removes the two year delays for smaller buildings, adds a couple of people to the work group, has Commerce convene it instead of the WSU Energy Program, and provides for a financial hardship exemption. The amendment requires reporting on the financial impacts to all covered Tier 1 buildings, not just the State buildings, and adds a representative of the owners of those buildings to the work group.

Summary –
The bill delays the compliance dates by which covered commercial buildings would have to meet the State’s energy performance standards for two years. Buildings over 220,000 sq. ft. would have to comply by June 2028; those between 90,000 and 220,000 sq. ft. would have to comply by June 2029, and the remaining buildings over 50,000 sq. ft. would have to comply by 2030. It would also delay the date for completing the rules, the reporting dates, and the other dates for implementing the standards by the same amount.

It would delay the schedule for creating SB5722’s energy management and operations requirements for commercial buildings between 20,000 sq. ft. and 50,000 sq. ft. and multi-family over 50,000 sq. ft. and the eventual performance standards for those by two years as well.

The bill would also have the WSU extension energy program create a work group with the help of the State Energy Office. It would report on the financial impacts of complying with the performance standard for state-owned buildings, and make recommendations to the Legislature about building energy efficiency, including identifying investments or other strategies and timelines for increasing energy efficiency in the sector. It would provide a cost-benefit analysis of options to meet the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the sector, including energy efficiency; and “recommend any changes” to Chapter 285, Laws of 2019. This was HB1257, and includes the current performance standards and benchmarking requirements for commercial buildings over 50,000 sq. ft. (It also includes the cost-effective conservation requirements for gas utilities, setting the social cost of carbon, various provisions about renewable gas, and EV infrastructure requirements for the Building Code Council.)

The work group would include a representative for OSPI; one for each of the public four-year higher education institutions; one for the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges; one for DSHS; one for the Department of Corrections; one for Enterprise Services; and two from a national association for industrial and office parks.

SB5037

SB5037 – Preventing the Energy Code from prohibiting the use of natural gas in buildings. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Senator Lynda Wilson (R; 17th District; Vancouver) (Co-Sponsor MacEwen – R)
Current status – Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would prevent the State Energy Code from prohibiting “the use of natural gas for any form of heating, or for uses related to any appliance, in any building.” (It would also remove achieving “the broader goal of building zero fossil-fuel greenhouse gas emission homes and buildings” from the language specifying what the Building Code Council is to design the Code to do.)