Category Archives: Climate Committment Act

HB2376

HB2376 – Adjusting the Climate Commitment Act’s provision of free allowances to municipal gas utilities.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Robertson (R; 31st District; Sumner) (Co-Sponsors Stokesbary, Dent, Ybarra, and Caldier – Rs)
Current status – Scheduled for a hearing in the House Committee on Energy & Environment at 1:30 PM on Monday January 22nd.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would have the free Climate Commitment Act allocations that municipal gas utilities receive to cover their emissions decline by 2% each year, rather than declining in proportion to the reductions in the cap needed to meet the State’s climate goals. It would increase the percentage of their free allowances they had to auction to provide rate reductions for customers by 2% a year, leaving the increases for other utilities at the current rate of 5% a year.

The bill would also authorize public entities subject to the CCA to go into executive session to discuss financial, proprietary, or other market sensitive information related to their participation in its markets. (The Act already exempts records about these, but it doesn’t exempt discussions of them.)

HB2333

HB2333 – Assessing the potential of state-owned natural and built assets to generate offset credits for carbon markets.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Reeves (D; 30th District; Federal Way) (Co-Sponsors Walen, Chapman, Springer, and Ramel – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Energy & Environment January 22nd, amended to extend the due date for the assessment by six months, drop Ecology from the process of carrying it out, and allow linkage before it’s completed. Passed out of committee January 29th. Referred to the Committee on the Capital Budget.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would have the Department of Natural Resources, in collaboration and coordination with other specified agencies, assess state-owned natural and built assets with the potential to generate offset credits for the state’s carbon market. The study would also analyze their offset credit potential under protocols that the state might adopt by rule in the future, including those in voluntary carbon markets. DNR would report the results and any related recommendations for future coordination with local governments to the Legislature by July 2025; the bill would prohibit any linkage agreements before the assessment was completed.

HB2249

HB2249 – Studying the impact of including general market participants in all the auctions of allowances for the Climate Commitment Program.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Dye (R; 9th District; Pomeroy)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy on January 25th. Still in committee at cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary
The bill would require the Washington State Institute for the Study of Public Policy to publish a report on any impacts that including general market participants in the auctions has on allowance prices. (These are the 40% of current participants in the market that don’t actually have any covered emissions or compliance obligations. They can be buying allowances and retiring them to voluntarily offset emissions that the program doesn’t cover, for example, or trading them to speculate on prices.) The Institute would update its evaluation and report again to the Legislature every other year as long as general market participants were allowed in the auctions.

After each auction Ecology would have to publish the number of allowances purchased by each entity registered with the department as a general market participant. It would also publish
the percentage of the auctioned allowances purchased by general market participants, and the percentage of the auctioned allowances they’d purchased over that compliance period. After the conclusion of each compliance period, the department would also publish:
(i) The total number of retired compliance instruments that were, at one time during the compliance period, held by general market participants;
(ii) The proportion of compliance instruments that were, at one point prior to retirement, held by a general market participant, relative to the total number of allowances retired during that compliance period;
(iii) The number of transactions of compliance instruments involving at least one general market participant as a buyer or seller;
(iv) A rank-ordered list of the most active general market participants, numbered in descending order based on the number of transactions each general market participant participated in during the preceding compliance period; and
(v) The average gross profit margin, positive or negative, of the compliance instrument sales by each general market participant during the preceding compliance period.

(I’m quoting this list, because I’m not sure whether “at one time” is supposed to mean the number at the point in time when the total was largest or the cumulative total of those held at any time during the period. I’m also not sure if “compliance instruments” just means allowances here; offsets are “compliance instruments” too, but I don’t think they’re traded in the auctions… I think that (i) is simply supposed to mean the number of allowances that general market participants bought and then retired during the period, and that (ii) is simply supposed to mean the percentage of the allowances retired during the period that a general market participant held at some point, but I wouldn’t swear to either of those readings.)

The bill also authorizes Ecology to release confidential information needed for the study to the Institute, but it requires the Institute to treat it as confidential too.

HB2199

HB2199 – Creating tax exemptions for amounts received through transactions involving the Climate Commitment Act’s allowances, offset credits, or price ceiling units.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Orcutt (R; 20th District; Kalama) (Co-Sponsors Fitzgibbon, Reed, Doglio, and Leavitt, Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Finance on January 23rd and passed out of committee January 30th. Referred to Rules.
Next step would be – Action by the Rules Committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary
The bill would exempt past and future amounts received from the receipt, generation, purchase, sale, transfer, or retirement of the Climate Commitment Act’s allowances, offset credits, or price ceiling units from the business & occupation tax and the public utility tax.

SB6058

SB6058 – Facilitating linkage of Washington’s carbon market with the California-Quebec market.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Nguyen (D; 34th District; White Center) By request of the Department of Ecology.
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology January 12th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee January 25th. Scheduled for a hearing in Ways & Means at 1:30 PM on Friday February 2nd.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2201 is a companion bill in the House.

In the Senate –
There’s a staff summary of the changes made by the substitute at the beginning of it; it’s in the folder of materials for the Executive session.

Summary –
The bill would require the Department of Ecology to synchronize Washington’s compliance periods with those of a linked jurisdiction or jurisdictions, and it takes steps in that direction by defining them as a first period, a second period, and so on, as well as by no longer specifying their starting dates or their lengths in years.

It would allow Ecology to require electric power entities to report emissions of greenhouse gases from all electricity that is purchased, sold, imported, exported, or exchanged in Washington. It would eliminate a current exemption from the program’s requirements for the importers of power from unspecified sources with associated exemptions below 25,000 metric tons a year. It would also eliminate an exemption for imports of unspecified power that are balanced by exports of unspecified power by the same entity within the same hour to a jurisdiction that’s not covered by a linked program. It would remove Ecology’s authority to adjust the amount of monetary penalties or the number of penalty allowances in the first compliance period. (It would also specify that the Department is required to establish greenhouse gas emission reporting methodologies for covered entities.)

The bill would allow a general market participant to own more than 10 percent of total allowances to be issued in a calendar year if we linked with a jurisdiction that allowed that.

It would require offsets from a linked jurisdiction to have been generated from projects within that jurisdiction. It also revises the language about the use of offsets from projects on tribal lands. As I read the changes, they simply rephrase the current rules to make it clear that if you use some offsets from projects on tribal lands as part of your basic allowance for offsets, you still can use the additional tribal offsets in the option that allows you to cover some more obligations with those.

The bill also includes a provision to ensure it won’t be put on the ballot as an alternative to Initiative 2117, which would eliminate the cap and invest program.

HB2201

HB2201 – Facilitating linkage of Washington’s carbon market with the California-Quebec market.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Doglio (D; 22nd District; Thurston County) (Co-Sponsor Fitzgibbon) By request of the Department of Ecology.
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy January 15th; replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee January 25th. Referred to Appropriations, and scheduled for a hearing there at 10:30 AM on Friday February 2nd.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6058 is a companion bill in the Senate.

In the House –
There’s a staff summary of the changes made by the substitute at the beginning of it.

Summary
The bill would require the Department of Ecology to synchronize Washington’s compliance periods with those of a linked jurisdiction or jurisdictions, and it takes steps in that direction by defining them as a first period, a second period, and so on, as well as by no longer specifying their starting dates or their lengths in years.

The bill would allow a general market participant to own more than 10 percent of total allowances to be issued in a calendar year if we linked with a jurisdiction that allowed that.

The bill also includes a provision to ensure it won’t be put on the ballot as an alternative to Initiative 2117, which would eliminate the cap and invest program.

HB2173

HB2173 – Authorizing executive sessions by public natural gas utilities to allow them to comply with the Climate Commitment Act’s prohibition on disclosing auction participation plans.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Ybarra (R; 13th District; Quincy)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on State Government & Tribal Relations January 17th. Replaced by a substitute limiting the change to utilities authorized under Title 35 or 35A RCW, and passed out of committee January 31st. Referred to Rules.
Next step would be – Action by the Rules Committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6047 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Summary
The bill would add discussions of greenhouse gas allowance auction bidding information to the reasons that governing bodies are allowed to go into executive session. This would provide the governing bodies of public gas utilities, which are generally subject to the Open Meetings Act, with a way to comply with the provision of the Climate Commitment Act that prohibits disclosing information about their bidding plans.

SB5918

SB5918 – Providing fossil fuel facilities that aren’t owned or operated by utilities with free Climate Commitment Act allowances to cover their emissions from generating power delivered in the state.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Van De Wege (D; 24th District; Sequim) (Co-Sponsor MacEwen, R)
Current status – Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1965 is a companion bill in the House.

Summary –
The bill would provide fossil fuel facilities that aren’t owned or operated by utilities with free Climate Commitment Act allowances to cover their emissions from generating power delivered in the state. It would also provide them to cover their costs in complying with the Acts’ requirements. These free allowances would continue through 2044. The bill says that it’s providing them “in order to mitigate the cost burden of the program on electricity customers,” but it doesn’t actually include any requirement for reducing customers’ costs.

HB2050

HB2050 – Requires posting stickers on fuel pumps showing the effects of State and Federal taxes and the Climate Commitment Act on fuel prices.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Goehner (R; 12th District; Chelan County) (Co-Sponsor Barkis, R)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Environment & Energy.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would require the Department of Agriculture to produce a sticker for display on fuel pumps showing the Federal and State fuel tax rates in cents per gallon. The Department would also calculate companies’ cost per gallon of complying with the Climate Commitment Act using the average cost of allowances in a given year, and would produce another sticker showing that in cents per gallon. The climate commitment stickers would be updated at least every three years, and the fuel tax stickers would be updated whenever there was a change in those tax rates.

Stickers would be mailed to fuel pump owners who requested them, as well as being displayed and updated on pumps in the course of government fuel pump inspections.

HB2040

HB1981 – Creating a rebate program to compensate vehicle owners for increases in fuel costs due to the Climate Commitment Act.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Connors (R; 8th District; Benton & Franklin Counties) (Co-Sponsor Dye, R)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Environment & Energy.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would provide a rebate to compensate vehicle owners for increases in fuel costs due to the Climate Commitment Act. It would take any revenue from the Act between July 1, 2022 and June 30th 2024 that hadn’t been appropriated for other purposes by the Legislature in the 2022 and 2023 sessions and divide that by an estimate of the number of people expected to renew their vehicle licenses between July 1 2024 and June 30 2025 to calculate the amount of the rebate. The Department of Licensing would send each owner a check in the summer of 2024, accompanied by an explanation of the source of the funds. (Rebates would go to the owners of trucks, light vehicles, and a variety of other small vehicles like motorcycles. You’d get one rebate even if you owned more than one vehicle; you’d get the same rebate regardless of how much fuel you’d bought; and as I read the bill, owners of electric cars would also get rebates.)

Although the bill would only authorize the rebates in fiscal 2025, the findings declare the Legislature’s intention to continue the program if the Climate Commitment Act is not repealed by initiative in the November 2024 election. (Since the checks would arrive in the summer before that election, accompanied by an explanation of the source of the funds, they would presumably also remind people of the effect of the Climate Commitment Act on fuel prices.)

SB5877

SB5877 – Requiring gas and electric bills to include a complete, itemized list of any rates and charges imposed by a utility to recover costs of complying with the Climate Commitment Act.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Fortunato (R; 44th District; Buckley)
Current status – Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would require customers’ gas and electric bills to include a complete, itemized list of any rates and charges that are being imposed by the utility to recover the costs of complying with the Climate Commitment Act (aka the cap and invest bill).

HB1965

HB1965 – Providing fossil fuel facilities that aren’t owned or operated by utilities with free Climate Commitment Act allowances to cover their emissions from generating power delivered in the state.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Chapman (D; 24th District; Port Angeles) (Co-Sponsor McEntire, R)
Current status – Prefiled
Next step would be – Referral to a committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5918 is a companion bill in the Senate.

SB5826

SB5826 – Requiring rates or charges authorized by the UTC to recover utilities’ costs in implementing the Climate Commitment Act to be listed on customers’ bills.
Prime Sponsor – Senator MacEwan (R; 35th District; Mason County)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology on January 24th. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would authorize the UTC to consider and perhaps approve tariff schedules that contain rates or charges requested by utilities to recover their costs for implementing requirements of the Climate Commitment Act. The Commission would require utilities to include any corresponding rate increase or charge as a line item on each customer’s bill.

HB1887

HB1887 – Loosening the cap & invest program’s requirements, expanding its biofuels exemption, providing refunds for exempted fuel purchases, & temporarily lowering license fees.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Chapman (D; 24th District; Olympic Peninsula)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Environment & Energy.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5783 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Summary –

The bill would exempt all biomass fuels from coverage under the Climate Commitment Act, dropping the current requirement that exempted biofuels have to have lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions at least 40% lower than those of the fossil fuels for which they’re substituted.

It would replace the current requirement for future reductions in the cap sufficient to achieve the covered entities’ share of what’s necessary to achieve the state’s climate targets with annual 3.6% reductions for 2024 through 2040, and 3.1% reductions for 2041 through 2049.

It would require the Department of Ecology to put an additional 5% of the allowance budgets for the twelve years from 2031 through 2042 into the price containment reserve account and to auction all of those additional allowances in separate auctions during 2024.

The bill would use any revenue above the October 2022 estimates from the cap and trade auctions in 2024 and 2025 that was not otherwise appropriated by the Legislature to reduce or replace the license fees for light and heavy vehicles in fiscal 2025 and 2026.

It would create a work group to examine consumer fuel pricing in the state including members of the transportation committees; academic experts; and the representatives of various agencies, industry stakeholders, and consumer advocacy organizations. The group would review:
a) Issues including previous studies and evaluations of fuel pricing, trends in that, factors causing Washington prices to be higher than the national average and how those factors have changed over time; and margins and profits at the fuel production, distribution, and retail levels,
b) State tax policies, environmental protections, and regulatory factors that may impact fuel pricing and make the state’s marketplace more or less competitive,
c) Supply dynamics affecting the fuel markets in the state, and,
d) Potential reporting and audit requirements that would make fuel pricing more transparent to consumers.
This work group would provide a report and recommendations to the Governor and appropriate committees of the Legislature.

The bill would require Ecology to create an on-line portal allowing the farm fuel users and freight haulers of agricultural products that are exempted from the bill’s coverage to submit documentation each quarter applying for a remittance based on any covered fuels they purchased during that quarter. (If they chose to use it, this would offer an alternative to the current system, which provides them with exemption certificates to be used when purchasing fuel.) The remittance would be equal to 0.008% of the auction price for that quarter for each gallon. (To illustrate roughly how this is supposed to work, as I understand it – since covered fuels emit something like 21 pounds of CO2e/gal, 100 gallons of fuel would emit about a metric ton of CO2e. Suppose the auction price were $50/metric ton, and all the cost for the credits to cover the emissions were passed on to the exempted buyer; they’d pay an extra $50. However, 0.008% of $50 is $0.40; and the rebate for the 100 gallons of fuel would be about $40. It’s not going to be exact, since various fuels with different emissions per gallon are getting lumped together and there will be various lags between the auction prices and whatever their effects on consumer prices turn out to be.)

The bill would provide $25 million for remittances in 2024; in fiscal 2025 and 2026 it would provide what was appropriated, and specifies that the climate investment account and the air quality and health disparities improvement account that get the money for investments from the Climate Commitment Act have to be appropriated at least as much as they were expected to get in the 2022 estimate. In subsequent years those would get the remaining revenue after specified funding for the carbon emissions reduction fund, which is dedicated to reducing transportation emissions, and whatever was appropriated for remittances.)

Those exempted users might choose to have remittances held by the department as credits based on the auction settlement price instead, and would be able to trade them with covered entities that needed credits to meet obligations under the bill through a mechanism the department would create and manage . The department would be allowed to develop other alternatives for handling these exemptions as well. Ecology would also be required to convene a work group with a variety of stakeholders to review the rules and process for handling these exemptions and to develop recommendations for the Legislature to ensure their full use and benefit.

SB5783

SB5783 – Loosening the cap & invest program’s requirements, expanding its biofuels exemption, providing refunds for exempted fuel purchases, & temporarily lowering license fees.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Mullet (D; 5th District; Central King County) (Co-Sponsors Van De Wege, Conway, and Cleveland – Ds)
Current status – Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1887 is a companion bill in the House.

Summary –