Category Archives: Emissions Limits

HB2892

HB2892 – Responds to Supreme Court ruling by specifying that Ecology has the authority to regulate direct and indirect emissions of greenhouse gases. (Reportedly NTIB.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Fitzgibbon (D; 34th District; Seattle) (By request of the Governor.)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 3rd; a substitute bill by the prime sponsor with several accompanying amendments of his passed out of committee February 6th. Referred to Appropriations.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6628 is a companion bill in the House.

Comments –
The Washington Supreme Court recently ruled (5-4) that the State’s Clean Air Rule can’t apply to companies that sell or distribute petroleum or natural gas because they don’t make their own emissions — other people burn the fuel they provide. The Court held that the Department of Ecology is currently only authorized to regulate “actual emitters.”

The staff ‘s summaries of the changes in the substitute and the amendments are currently available in the folder with the materials for the committee meeting.

Representative Fitzgibbon has apparently shifted his efforts on this issue to a new bill, introduced, heard, and passed out of Appropriations on March 2nd – HB2957.

Summary –
The bill amends the State’s Clean Air Act to specify that it applies to direct or indirect emissions, and to say explicitly that the Department of Ecology “may require persons who produce or distribute fossil fuels or other products that emit greenhouse gases in Washington to comply with air quality standards, emission standards, or emission limits on emissions of greenhouse gases.”

SB6628

SB6628 – Responds to Supreme Court ruling by specifying that Ecology has the authority to regulate direct and indirect emissions of greenhouse gases.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Carlyle (D; 36th District; Seattle) (By request of the Governor.)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology January 29th. An amended substitute passed out of committee February 6th; referred to Rules. Failed to pass out of the Senate by cutoff, but referred back to Rules by motion on February 26th.
Next step would be – Dead bill…
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2892 is a companion bill in the House.

Comments – The Washington Supreme Court recently ruled (5-4) that the State’s Clean Air Rule can’t apply to companies that sell or distribute petroleum or natural gas because they don’t make their own emissions — other people burn the fuel they provide. The Court held that the Department of Ecology is currently only authorized to regulate “actual emitters.”

The substitute adds findings, and its definitions specify that the act applies to indirect emissions as well as direct ones in a somewhat different way. (It doesn’t seem like a substantive change to me.) It adds sections requiring the UTC to provide prudent and timely cost recovery for measures that utilities take to comply with the act, and requiring the Department of Ecology to try to integrate new state greenhouse gas requirements with existing ones, and to try to design new requirements to help companies comply with those and with existing regulations at the lowest cost possible. It also adds facilities that can make over 100 million gallons of renewable fuel a year to the list of projects of statewide significance that can apply for expedited permitting and other support.

HB2472

HB2472 – Requires comprehensive full life cycle estimates of fossil fuel emissions in state environmental evaluations.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Pollett (D; 46th District; Northeast Seattle)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy January 21st . Failed to make it out of committee by 2020 cutoff; dead bill.
Next step would be –
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would require the State’s environmental assessments to include the upstream emissions associated with the production, gathering, transmission, storage, and distribution of fossil fuels, and those of the energy used for extraction, processing, and transporting them. They would also have to include the emissions associated with their downstream end use or combustion.

The bill would direct the Department of Ecology to adopt a rule requiring agencies and local governments to consider upstream and downstream emissions in permitting, planning, and other regulatory processes involving the environmental review or permitting of projects that use fossil fuels as a fuel source or as the primary component of the project. The rule is to estimate a weighted average for all the sources of each fuel; these assumptions would then be uniformly applied to covered fossil fuel proposals and projects. It’s not to create utility-specific rates, facility-specific rates, or project-specific rates. These assumptions would then be uniformly applied to covered fossil fuel proposals and projects, so these estimates would no longer be done on an individual project by project basis.

Details –
The Department of Ecology would create a rule by December 1, 2021, establishing a cumulative emissions rate for each fossil fuel including emissions that “may be presumed to occur prior to the end use of a fossil fuel or prior to or after the final point of commerce for a fossil fuel in Washington.” Ecology is to apply a precautionary principle and err on the side of applying comprehensive and inclusive assumptions about emissions rates. (The rule is also to include consideration of induced load or growth in fuel or energy consumption or electricity generation associated with a project.) (The Utilities and Transportation Commission, the chair of the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Department of Commerce would consult in the process.)

The bill amends current laws to specify the use of this method for estimating emissions in a range of State administrative processes, ranging from utility integrated resource planning to evaluations of proposed actions under the Clean Air Act.

Ecology is to review and update the rule every three years.

SB6272

SB6272 – Increases the State’s emissions reductions targets more.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Das (D; 47th District; Kent)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology January 21st. Failed to make it out of committee by 2020 cutoff; dead bill.
Next step would be –
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2311 is the identical companion bill in the House.
(There’s a Senate bill report.)

Comments –
The bill would raise the State’s targets farther than last session’s HB1113, which has been reintroduced. (That bill would set them to match the Paris Accords’.)

Summary –
The bill leaves the State’s current greenhouse gas emissions target of a reduction to 1990 levels by 2020 (which we will not meet) in place. It raises the next target from a 25% reduction below 1990 levels by 2035 to a 45% reduction by 2030. It adds a target for 2040 of a 70% reduction, and it increases the target for 2050 from a 50% reduction from 1990 levels to a 95% reduction. It adds a requirement for achieving net-zero emissions state-wide by 2050.

The targets are about reducing the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere; they don’t address removing CO2 by increasing sequestration. However, the bill also says that “separate and apart” from reducing emissions to meet the targets, it’s the policy of the State “to prioritize sequestration activities in amounts necessary to achieve the carbon neutrality goal established in RCW 70.235.020, and at a level consistent with pathways to limit global warming to one and one-half degrees.” It says the State should promote voluntary and incentive based sequestration on natural and working lands and recognize the potential for sequestration in products and product supply chains associated with working lands. It requires agencies to seek all practical opportunities to cost-effectively maximize carbon sequestration in their operations, contracting, and grant-making activities.

Details –
Commerce’s reports on emissions are now to include those from wildfires.

State agencies’ goals are increased to a 45% reduction below 2005 levels by 2030, a 70% reduction by 2040, a 95% reduction below 2005 levels by 2050, and net zero emissions by state government as a whole by then as well. Agencies are now to report every two years to the efficiency and environmental performance office at the Department of Commerce on their plans for reaching these targets and Commerce is to report to the Legislature on those (and on the budget required to implement them).

HB2311

HB2311 – Increases the State’s emissions reductions targets beyond the Paris Accords’.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Slatter (D; 48th District; Bellevue, Redmond, & Kirkland)
Current status –
In the House – (Passed)
A substitute bill passed the House Committee on Environment & Energy January 23rd. Referred to the House Committee on Appropriations; had a hearing there February 3rd. Passed out of Appropriations with a very minor amendment February 8th. Referred to Rules February 11th. Passed out of the House with a floor amendment February 16th.

In the Senate – (Passed)
Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology. Had a hearing February 20th; passed out of committee February 25th. Referred to Ways and Means; had a hearing there on February 28th. Passed out of committee March 2nd, and referred to Rules. Passed the Senate March 5th.
Next step would be – To the Governor for his signature.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6272 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
The bill would raise the State’s targets farther than last session’s HB2313, which has been reintroduced and which would set them to match the Paris Accords’.

The House substitute adds a section about the State’s intent, with items about environmental justice; supporting good jobs and creating economic benefits; and maintaining manufacturing and avoiding leakage. It specifies that the targets are about reducing anthropogenic emissions and includes the tonnes of reductions implied by the percentage targets. The amendment in Appropriations adjusted the language about carbon sequestration and added carbon storage to the goals for State agencies. The floor amendment specifies that agencies don’t have to maximize sequestration in their land-management activities, and only requires DNR to act in in cooperation with the landowners when it is promoting carbon sequestration on the private lands and trust lands that it supervises , not when it’s requiring it.

Details –
Commerce’s reports on emissions are now to include those from wildfires.

SB5981

SB5981 – Creates a cap and trade system.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Carlyle (D; 36th District; Seattle)
Current status – Referred to Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology. Had a hearing March 21st. Still in committee by the 2019 cutoff; reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session. Scheduled for a hearing on a draft substitute, February 4th 2020 at 10:00 AM.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

2020 Substitute –
The substitute delays any implementation of its provisions until a new act providing at least $2 billion per biennium in new transportation funding has been passed. It creates a fourth destination for the revenue, the Strategic Transportation Investment Account, though the draft leaves the division of funding between the four accounts open. This account must be used to provide cost-effective congestion relief, enhance all modes of mobility, assist highly impacted communities, and address the impacts of the transportation system on carbon pollution and other quality of life issues, including impacts to salmon. This funding can include projects to reduce congestion and improve air quality, including multimodal alternatives; ones to reduce carbon emissions from transportation including ones to accelerate the deployment of zero emission vehicles or deploy grid infrastructure for vehicle charging; and fish barrier correction projects.

The new version specifies that Ecology must allocate allowances to electric utilities between 2021 and 2035 covering their average annual emissions over each previous three year period, and that it’s to adopt rules “providing the method for distribution of no-cost allowances” to them between 2035 and 2050. (I assume this means the rules would gradually step down their allowances in some way to be determined in the future.) The substitute exempts emissions associated with electricity exported from the state. The State would actually get the allowances back immediately, auction them, and then give the proceeds to the utilities, to be used exclusively to minimize the bill’s impacts on customers. Each utility would have to develop a plan, conforming to rules from the UTC or the Department of Commerce, with a portfolio of mechanisms for aiding customers, like weatherization, energy efficiency, electrification of heating in buildings, electric vehicle incentives, and infrastructure. At least half the money would now have to go to rate relief.

Natural gas suppliers would be covered by a similar scheme, but their starting allocation in 2022 is left open in the draft, and it would be required to step down annually between then and 2035 in proportion to the gas utilities’ share of the reductions needed to meet the State’s 2035 target. Their plans would have to give the highest priority to assisting low-income customers, and use at least twenty-five percent of the money for rate relief for residential customers. Proceeds from the sale of allowances are used for investments to reduce emissions, including efficiency and renewable gas projects. The UTC is to provide for timely recovery for prudent and reasonable costs associated with complying with the act, and gas companies are prohibited from passing costs on to customers whose emissions are covered by its other provisions.

The substitute specifies that energy efficiency projects, carbon capture, and sequestration may be used to provide offsets. (It would no longer allow the aggregation of temporally separate offset activities.) It raises the limit on using offsets between 2024 and 2034 from 6% to 8%. The current bill requires certain percentages of offset projects to provide direct environmental benefits to the state. The substitute lets projects within the state count toward those requirements, and raises the required percentage between 2024 and 2034 from 50% to 90%. It says Ecology can restrict the use of offsets from areas and plants failing to meet air quality standards; eliminates the provisions allowing the use of up to an extra 5% of offsets from tribal lands; directs Ecology to keep the total quantity of allowances and offsets below the total of required compliance obligations “to the extent practicable,” and adds a regular review of the offset protocols.

The substitute drops the section prohibiting regional air quality agencies and other jurisdictions from directly regulating greenhouse gas emissions through a cap, charge, low-carbon fuel standard or clean fuels standard, or charge upon sale or use. It adds some progressive requirements about standards that have to be met by parties receiving project contracts, and moves various dates forward a year.

Summary of the 2019 bill –
Raises the State’s targets for greenhouse gas reductions to match the Paris Accords’. Creates a state greenhouse gas emissions cap and trade program requiring allowances for each metric ton of emissions above a gradually decreasing cap. Allowances are sold at auction, and can be sold or traded within the state and in linked programs in other jurisdictions. Requires setting a floor and a ceiling on prices for allowances, and mechanisms for increasing or decreasing the allowances available to help keep prices within that range.

Details –
The cap is to be set and adjusted over time so that covered entities contribute their proportional share of the overall State reductions needed to meet the new targets.

Covered entities
You need allowances if your facility emits more than 25,000 metric tons/year of CO2 equivalents (on its own or when the emissions associated with your direct purchases of electricity are included); if the associated emissions from your generating electricity in the state, importing it, or supplying natural gas are above that level; or if you’re a supplier of other fuels like gasoline or diesel that would produce emissions above that level when combusted. You can also opt-in to the program if you’re responsible for emissions but aren’t required to participate (if, for example, you can make reductions cheaply and want to make money by selling the allowances you earn), or if you just want to trade in the market. Allowances can be banked and used in later years. There’s a penalty of $200 per allowance, adjusted for inflation starting in 2025, for failing to provide enough of them to cover your emissions in a given year, as well as a penalty of up to $10,000 for violations of the rules.

Offsets
Between 2021 and 2023 up to 8% of an entities’ obligations may be met with approved offset credits, provided at least 75% of those reduce emissions in the state; through 2034 up to 6% of them may be met with offsets if at least 50% of those reduce emissions in Washington. At any point another 5% may be met through offsets on tribal land in the US or a linked jurisdiction. (The bill may intend this to mean tribal land in the state, but it doesn’t say so.) The bill creates an advisory committee to provide guidance on rules to increase offset projects with other environmental benefits in the state while prioritizing projects that “benefit highly impacted communities, Indian tribes, and natural and working lands.”

Exemptions
The bill exempts biomass from various approved sources, all biofuels, aviation fuel, coal burned at the Transalta plant, marine fuel burned outside the state, vented or unintentional emissions, and military installations.

Between 2021 and 2035, it provides a gradually decreasing number of free allowances to energy-intensive trade exposed industries in eleven categories, and to any others the Department of Commerce may identify through quantitive criteria about their energy use and trade exposure. (However, the bill also says in Section 14(1) that they don’t have to start complying until 2023…) The number of free allowances is to decrease at the same rate needed for reductions in allowances for covered entities as a whole to result in meeting the targets; facilities with relatively lower emissions are to receive more allowances. (The Department’s to review the program every two years to see if it is avoiding significant leakage from the transfer of activities out of state, or awarding more free allowances than are necessary for that goal.)

If a 100% Clean Electricity bill passes, the bill requires the Department of Ecology to develop rules, in consultation with Commerce and the UTC, providing utilities with enough free allowances through 2035 to avoid the bill’s impacting rates or charges. It provides natural gas utilities free allowances for the gas sold to low-income customers, so the company does not have to pay to offset those emissions. (I think that the bill requires the value of those allowances to be spent funding measures to benefit low-income consumers such as weatherization, conservation, and help paying bills.)

Investments
The bill creates a climate oversight board with a lot of members, including representatives of the Governor, the Commissioner of Public Lands, the Auditor, four legislators, two tribal representatives, various stakeholders, and an indeterminate number of other experts. (It isn’t clear how some of these people are to be selected.) It’s responsible for ongoing review of the cap and trade system and the funding provided by it, but the bill doesn’t say what happens to any conclusions it draws from that review, or what if any power it has to affect what it “reviews”.

The bill creates an environmental and economic justice panel, appointed by the Governor. The panel’s to include two members representing union labor; two members representing tribal governments; and five other members, including at least one tribal leader and at least two nontribal leaders representing the interests of vulnerable populations residing in “highly impacted communities”. (Those communities are to be identified by the Department of Health, considering “vulnerable populations” and environmental hazards; including census tracts that are partly or wholly on tribal land; and building on a particular analysis already completed by the UW.) The panel’s to be co-chaired by a tribal leader and a representative of the interests of highly impacted communities. It’s to make recommendations on the plans for spending this revenue and their implementation, evaluate the funding levels, and analyze the policies to determine if they produce the intended improvements. The Department of Ecology is to consult with the panel and “accord substantial weight” to its recommendations in developing implementation plans for spending from each of the funds the bill sets up, and in developing biennial spending plans for each of them. It’s to update the identification of highly impacted areas every two years “under advisement from” the panel.

Any agency receiving funding from the system must consult with Indian tribes “on all decisions that may affect Indian tribes’ rights and interests in their tribal lands.” (Perhaps this only covers decisions implementing this bill, but it doesn’t seem to say that.) The process must be independent of any public participation process required by state law, or by a state agency, and regardless of whether the agency receives a request for consultation. No project that affects tribal lands can be funded without “meaningful consultation” with affected Indian tribes. Any project that “directly impacts” tribal lands must have written consent from the relevant tribal governments.

40% of the revenue goes to an energy transformation account, to be spent on projects and programs in Washington that provide additional reductions in carbon pollution. These include residential, industrial, construction, transportation, and agricultural investments in renewable energy, efficiency, conservation, sequestration, and carbon emissions reductions. They have to provide real, specific, quantifiable, additional, and verifiable reductions for periods of time to be determined by the Department, and meet high labor standards. They have to be ranked and sortable based on quantitative performance metrics, including the avoided cost of a ton of carbon dioxide, though the bill does not say they have to be selected on that basis, or provide any criteria for deciding which projects that meet the basic standards will be selected, beyond saying 10% of these funds have to be spent in highly impacted areas.

35% of the revenue goes to an energy transition account, to provide funding to assist low-income households with increased energy prices; to help provide clean energy and low-carbon housing, transportation options, and technologies to people with greater barriers to accessing those, and where pollution is concentrated; and to support displaced fossil fuel-related industry workers. Spending has to be prioritized to help with additional energy and transportation costs resulting from policies and programs to reduce fossil fuel use, and to assist displaced workers, but it can also be used “to reduce carbon pollution and reduce vulnerable population characteristics or environmental burdens in highly impacted communities.” Thus, the money can be spent in a very wide variety of ways, including direct financial assistance, social and health services programs, energy bill subsidies, efficiency and weatherization services, affordable transportation, affordable housing, and improved community services. The Department must develop a worker support program for bargaining unit and nonsupervisory fossil fuel industry workers who are affected by the transition away from fossil fuels to a clean energy economy, and may allocate additional funds to it if there’s an unexpected amount of dislocation.

25% of the revenue goes to a climate impacts resilience account. Expenditures from it are to prioritize funding and investments to benefit “highly impacted communities”. At least half of it’s to go to community preparedness and awareness “before, during, and after” wildfires; resources to help tribal communities deal with wildfires; relocating tribal communities impacted by flooding and sea level rise; and programs to increase awareness of and preparedness for impacts of climate change and to educate people about ways to reduce pollution. The remainder’s to be spent on “natural resources resilience and related purposes” including, but not limited to, funding for improving forest and natural lands’ health and resilience to climate change, including thinning and prescribed fire projects and wildland fire prevention; for reducing stormwater impacts; for reducing flooding risks; for improving the availability and reliability of water supplies for in-stream and out-of-stream uses; for fish barrier correction projects; for projects to prepare for sea level rise and restore habitats, including small forestland owner fish passage barrier projects; and for adapting to and remediating the impacts of ocean acidification.

Details –
There are provisions for entering into agreements linking the program and its auctions with other jurisdictions’. The bill requires creating an advisory committee to make recommendations about designing and implementing the system, and to report on its functioning every two years. It requires appointing an independent organization to monitor and report on the auctions and on secondary markets that buy and sell allowances. It requires creating an electronic system for handling allowances and the auctions, or sharing another jurisdiction’s.

It prohibits regional air quality agencies and local jurisdictions regulating greenhouse gas emissions through “a cap, charge, low-carbon fuel standard or clean fuels standard, or charge upon the sale or use”.

HB1984

HB1984 – Exempts any location processing, handling, or preparing food or beverages for sale or service to the public from any law intending to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Maycumber (R; 7th District; Northeast counties)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy February 18th. Still in committee by 2019 cutoff; reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
“Food processing plants” include any places where food or beverages are prepared, handled or processed for sale, or for service to the public without charge, in any way (other than merely washing, trimming and packaging vegetables and fruit for sale). It includes lunch counters, night clubs, vending machines, the Salvation Army, retail meat markets, school cafeterias, and so on, as well as canneries and processing plants.

I’m not sure how far the bill’s language about exemptions from measures “otherwise intended to support the achievement” of the State’s targets for emissions reductions goes. For example, if the state wanted to require grid-enabled water heaters in new restaurants, would those businesses be exempt? If the intent statement of a new energy efficiency bill included carbon reduction as one of the goals of the bill, would these businesses be exempt from that?

Summary –
The bill exempts all “food processing plants” from requirements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and any measures “otherwise intended to support the achievement” of the state’s targets for reducing those.

HB1985

HB1985 – Relief from greenhouse gas regulations for agricultural commodities and food products with lower embedded emissions than imported equivalents.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Maycumber (R; 7th District; Northeast counties)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy February 18th. Still in committee by cutoff; reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
“Food products” include animal feed, chewing gum, bottled water, and “articles used for components of any such article.” (I’m not sure if that includes the plastic bottle and the gum wrapper or not…)

If 95% of the imported apples being sold in Washington had lower emissions than your apples, you apparently could pick one of the producers of the 5% that didn’t as your competitor for the comparison.

I don’t see what the B&O taxes that may be included in the comparisons have to do with emissions, or how you’re supposed to estimate the emissions of “labor”. (Are you supposed to compare the energy use of 17 farmworkers with the emissions associated with manufacturing and operating a mechanical harvester that will do the same work?) There’s also no further specification of how to define or limit the scope of these life-cycle analyses, so there’s lots of room to get the comparisons to come out however you’d like them to by including or omitting thing like land use changes.) Doing these for food is notoriously complicated; in particular, it’s been estimated that transportation from the farm to the supermarket is only about 4% of its carbon footprint; lots comes from how much fertilizer and machinery you use.

Summary –
The bill requires the Department of Commerce to consult with Ecology and stakeholders and develop a model that allows producers of products and goods to estimate the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production and transportation of products and goods imported from out of state.

If any rule is created limiting the greenhouse gas emissions of agricultural commodities or food products a business can have Ecology compare the emissions associated with a specified competitors’ import with the same type of item from Washington. (A business can also provide the department with a comparison of its own from “a reputable greenhouse gas emissions expert.”)

If the comparison estimates that an imported product has higher associated emissions than the Washington one, Ecology is to provide regulatory relief for the producer of the agricultural commodity or food product to assure they remain competitive in the global market. This includes providing an exemption from any rules addressing greenhouse gas emissions, including those that limit or price emissions, require purchasing credits, or add additional costs to production.

Details
The calculations are to “include the gross estimated carbon emissions” of the items, including transportation, and may include “labor, business and occupation taxes, energy use of vehicles involved in production or transport, and clean air credit purchasing.”

HB1549

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

Summary –

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

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

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

Details:

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

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

SB5561

SB5561 – Specifies requirements for lead agencies’ evaluations of greenhouse gas emissions.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Takko (D; 19th District; Longview)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology, February 19th. Still in committee by 2019 cutoff; reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session. Failed to make it out of committee by 2020 cutoff; dead bill.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1549 is an identical companion bill in the House.

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

Details:

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

HB1597

HB1597 – Including methane leakage from natural gas facilities in emissions estimates and regulatory activity.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Pollet (D; 46th District; Northeast Seattle)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy, February 12th at 3:30. Reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
The House Bill Analysis is available.

Summary –
Requires the Department of Ecology to develop a uniformly applicable estimate of methane emissions during the production, gathering, processing, transmission, storage, and distribution of natural gas in the state, and a rule to specify their global warming potential over a twenty year time frame. (The estimate is to be set at a level where there’s a 95% chance that actual emissions are not above it.)

The bill requires State agencies, cities, and local governments in general to use those estimates of upstream natural gas emissions in permitting, planning, and other regulatory processes, and specifically amends the laws about a number of State regulatory processes to require including them in emissions estimates.

Details:

Ecology must consult with the UTC, the Chair of the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Department of Commerce in developing this rule making process. It can require gas or electrical companies to submit information about the emissions for their existing or proposed gas facilities, but they can only be used in developing an estimate to apply uniformly to all gas emissions, not to particular companies’. Starting in 2024, Ecology must evaluate the accuracy of the estimate every three years; update it when needed; and report on it to the appropriate legislative committees, including recommendations for changing how widely it’s applied, if any.

The bill amends the Clean Air Act, the State’s targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, reviews under the Environmental Policy Act of facilities or projects whose associated direct or indirect annual greenhouse gas emissions are reasonably expected to be over ten thousand tons a year, the provisions for carbon mitigation plans from power plants, environmental facilities site planning, the regulation of utilities by the UTC, and utilities’ integrated resource planning to require inclusion of upstream emissions from natural gas estimated in accordance with Ecology’s rule.

HB1113

HB1113 – Increases the State’s targets for emissions reductions to match the Paris Accords’.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Slatter (D, 48th District, Bellevue)
Current status – Had a hearing before the House Committee on Environment & Energy January 15th. Passed out of committee with several amendments January 31st. Had a hearing in the House Appropriations Committee, February 21st. Reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
House Bill Analysis

Comments –
The amended bill adds a statement about the importance of supporting working forests to meeting the State’s climate goals, and adds reporting on the carbon sequestration from urban forest practices and on the emission reductions and sequestration increases from forest management practices including prescribed burning and mechanized thinning to the bill’s requirements.

Representative Slatter’s new 2020 bill, HB2311, would increase the State’s targets more.

Summary –
It adds a 19% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2025 (and best efforts to reach a 21% reduction by then) to the State’s targets. It increases the target for 2035 from a 25% reduction to a 40% reduction, and the target for 2050 from a 50% reduction to an 80% reduction.

Requires the State to encourage proactive forest management, “including, but not limited to, prescribed burning and mechanized thinning as a means of reducing emissions”.

Details –
Adds a comparison with other states’ emissions, and reporting on the emissions from wildfires to the current requirements for a report by Ecology and Commerce to the Governor and appropriate committees of the Legislature every two years. Requires a report to the Legislature by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee and Review Committee every five years about the effects of these reductions on the economy and jobs.

HB1029

HB1029 – Adds requirements for Ecology’s assessments of Federal water quality permit applications.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Walsh (R, 19th District, Aberdeen)
Current status – Referred to the Committee on Environment & Energy. (Reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session.)
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
Getting a permit for activities that may result in discharging a pollutant into waters of the United States, requires applying for a water quality certificate from Ecology stating that your releases meet the standards of the Federal Clean Water Act. The bill adds requirements about how Ecology manages these applications, and limits the discharges and environmental effects that Ecology can take into account.

Comments –
At first glance it doesn’t seem as if water quality has much to do with greenhouse gases. However, these permits also cover the management of manure at feed lots and the operation of wastewater treatment plants, which are sources of methane emissions. The bill prohibits Ecology from considering any environmental damages that might result from impacts based on the end use of a product outside the state’s borders, or from other “impacts of the activities that are not within the jurisdiction of the state to regulate.” (Presumably, this is related to recent decisions by Ecology and the Shorelines Management Board denying permits to new fossil fuel export terminals that did include the eventual greenhouse gas emissions from burning those exports into account.)