Category Archives: Governor 2022

SB5974

SB5974 – 2022 Transportation Package.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Liias (D; 21st District; Southwest Snohomish County) (Co-Sponsor Saldaña – D)
Current status – Sent to conference  committee; its report was adopted by both houses March 10. Relative to the amended House striker, the final version restores the specification that $500 million in preservation and maintenance funding is for stormwater projects with an emphasis on green infrastructure. It no longer specifies an intent to fund projects according to the LEAP document.  It drops the 6¢/gallon tax on fuel exported to other states, and transfers $57 million a year to the Move Ahead WA flexible fund from the general fund; allows using the Public Works Assistance account for Move Ahead WA projects; and transfers $57 million a year from that account to Move Ahead WA. It restores the inflation adjustment to the border fuel tax, and drops the authorization for voters to approve an increase of up to 2% in their local gas utility tax, and the tax sticker on fuel pumps. It allows extending the local transit benefit tax with a vote more than once. It shifts creating the rail crossing grant program to the Department of Transportation, and limits regional mobility grant awards to transit authorities with free fares for riders 18 and under. It requires Transportation to estimate and report on the cap and invest program credits to be generated as a result of Move Ahead WA projects, and to make recommendations on the most effective ways to invest those to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and decarbonize transportation. It specifies that completing Connecting Washington projects is a legislative priority, and recognizes that “the application of practical design” during project design may produce cost saving, but it specifies various requirements for legislative oversight of proposed changes. It requires reporting on estimated savings as a result of practical design, and transfers those and some other possible project savings to the transportation future funding program to be split evenly between accelerating current Connecting Washington projects and funding new ones.
Next step would be – To the Governor
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2119 is a companion bill in the House.

In the House – Passed
Referred to Transportation February 17th; then passed to Rules without a hearing on February 25th. The bill was amended on the floor by Representative Fey to eliminate the 6% tax on fuel exported to other states, to partially replace the expected revenue by transferring $100 million a year for the next 15 years from the Public Works Assistance Account to the Move Ahead WA program, resulting in a estimated net reduction of roughly $500 million in funding for the program over that period, and to drop the specification that $500 million of the preservation and maintenance funding is for enhancing stormwater runoff treatment with an emphasis on green infrastructure retrofits. His striker also defines biofuels in the Fuel Tax Act as those with life cycle emissions at least 40% below those of the petroleum products they’re replacing; drops the authorization for local increases of up to 2% on utility taxes to fund transportation; drops the required railway crossing grant program; adds some environmental justice provisions; drops the increased license plate fee from $50 to $40 for used cars; and has the Electric Vehicle Coordinating Council develop of a public and private outreach plan and create an industry electric vehicle advisory committee. Other amendments have the Department of Agriculture produce and distribute a sticker required on motor fuel pumps with information on Federal and State tax rate, and remove the inflation adjustment from the provision authorizing jurisdictions within ten miles of the border to raise the border fuel tax from 1¢/gallon to 2¢.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in the Transportation Committee Thursday February 10th at 10:00 AM; continued February 11th at 8:00 AM. Referred to Rules. Amended by the prime sponsor to adjust the bill in a number of small ways; and by others to declare the State’s intention to fully fund the ferry vessel and terminal electrification program in accordance with the 2040 Long Range Plan and the need to replace vessels on a biennial basis; and to delay the imposition of the tax on imported fuel for five months, reducing expected revenues by $51.2 million. Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor to eliminate telephone businesses from the optional additional 2% tax; to specify that $500 million of the preservation and maintenance funding under LEAP 2 is to go to enhance stormwater runoff treatment with an emphasis on green infrastructure retrofits; to create a grant program for projects that eliminate at grade highway-rail crossings; to create a Department of Transportation program focused on safety improvements to prevent lane departures in dangerous areas; and to make a couple of other minor changes. Passed by the Senate February 15th.

Comments –
The Washington State Wire has a summary of the anticipated budget allocations plus a little political commentary.

Summary –
The bill would specify that transportation appropriations from the carbon emissions reduction account which is funded by revenue from the cap and invest program can only by used for active transportation, transit programs and projects, alternative fuel and electrification, ferries, and rail. It would declare the Legislature’s intention to use this money for the activities identified in the LEAP Transportation Document. 24% of that money would be dedicated to active transportation and 56% to transit. The bill would expand the cap and invest program’s requirement for environmental justice assessments, for reporting to the Environmental Justice Council, and for directing specified percentages of funding to vulnerable populations to include these investments.

It replaces the section of  the Clean Fuels Act about Commerce’s creation of implementation rules with a new section, which simply deletes the subsection of the original act that the Governor vetoed.

The bill would apply the fuel tax to direct deliveries and bulk transfers to any destination with the United States, including tribal lands, but then it would provide credits against that, resulting in a tax of 6¢ a gallon, and no tax if the state to which the fuel went imposed a higher tax on it than Washington’s. (It would extend the current provisions that allow claiming a credit against the tax for fuel used in particular activities like urban transit to those uses of fuel exported to other parts of the country.) It would raise the tax on aircraft fuel sold, delivered or used in the state from 11¢/gallon to 18¢/gallon.

The bill would create a Move Ahead Washington account and a Move Ahead Washington flexible account which could only be spent on projects, programs, or activities assigned to those accounts in an omnibus transportation appropriations act. The bill would raise the basic license plate fee from $10 to $50, raise the motorcycle fee from $4 to $20, raise the dealer permit fee from $15 to $40, and raise license replacement fees; most of that additional revenue, the 25¢ license plate technology fee, and the 50¢ license service fee would be directed to the Move Ahead Washington account. It would raise the enhanced license fee from $32 to $56; add $2 to the fee for abstracts of driving records (and $4 after July 1st 2029); raise the fee for replacing driving identification to change or correct material information from $10 to $20; and deposit the additional revenue in the Move Ahead Washington flexible account. It would raise the documentary service fee that dealers can charge to cover their administrative costs in concluding sales and leases, which include licensing and registration fees and other agency fees, from $150 to $200.

The bill would direct $31 million a year from the general fund to the Move Ahead Washington flexible account from 2026 through 2038. (The bill says this represents the estimated state sales and use tax generated from the new transportation projects and activities it would fund.)

It would fund the sales and use tax reductions for the sale or lease of plug-in and fuel cell vehicles from the general fund rather than the electric vehicle account. It would fund the credits against the B&O tax and the public utility tax for purchases of alternative fuel vehicles over 14,000 pounds, for alternative fuel infrastructure, and for employers’ investments in financial commute trip reduction incentives from the general fund rather than the multimodal transportation account. It would fund the exemptions from the sales and use taxes for the sales of batteries and fuel cells for vehicles, and for work on them, from the general fund, and not the multimodal account.

The bill would raise the maximum amount of the excise tax voters in border area jurisdictions could decide to impose on the retail sale of fuel for the purpose of street maintenance and construction from 1¢/gallon to 2¢/gallon, adjusted for inflation going forward. It would allow cities and towns to impose an additional tax of up to 2% on natural gas, steam energy, or telephone businesses. (This would not require a vote of the people as I read the bill). The revenue would have to be used for improvements in the transportation plan of the state, a regional transportation planning organization, the city, or the county, but might include public transportation and transportation demand management projects. It would allow transportation benefit districts to increase an existing sales or use tax for special transportation needs from 2/10 of one percent to up a maximum of 3/10 of one percent. It would allow the governing board of a district that included all the territory of the jurisdiction establishing it to impose a new local sales and use tax of up to 1/10 of one percent, and to vote to extend it for up to ten years.

The bill would make having all new vehicles sold, purchased, or registered in Washington be electric beginning with the 2030 models a target for the State, and would require the Department of Commerce to create “a scoping plan” for achieving that.

It would have Commerce establish a competitive bus and bus facilities grant program to provide funds to transit authorities for the replacement, expansion, rehabilitation, and purchase of transit rolling stock (including ferries and vans); the construction, modification, or rehabilitation of facilities; and the retrofitting of rolling stock and facilities to adapt to technological change or innovation. It would be required to incorporate environmental justice principles and geographic diversity into the selection process, to exclude fuel type as a factor, to limit any single grantee to a maximum of 35% of the funding in a biennium, and to establish an advisory committee to carry out the requirements for the program, including assisting with establishing the grant criteria.

The bill would establish a Connecting Communities program at Commerce to improve active transportation connectivity in communities by providing safe, continuous routes for pedestrians, bicyclists, and other nonvehicle users carrying out daily activities; mitigating for the health, safety, and access impacts of transportation infrastructure that bisects communities and creates obstacles in the local active transportation network; investing in greenways providing protected routes for nonvehicular users; and facilitating the planning, development, and implementation of projects and activities to improve the connectivity and safety of that network. The program would propose projects to the Legislature considering
(a) Access to a transit facility, community facility, commercial center, or community-identified assets;
(b) The use of minority and women-owned businesses and community-based organizations in planning, community engagement, design, and construction of projects;
(c) Whether they will serve overburdened communities, vulnerable populations, low income households, and people with disabilities;
(d) Environmental health disparities;
(e) Location on or adjacent to tribal lands or locations providing essential services to tribal members;
(f) Crash experience involving pedestrians and bicyclists; and
(g) Identified need by a community.
Commerce would report to the transportation committees of the Legislature in December of each year for five years on selected projects for funding and on the status of previously funded projects.

The bill would require state transportation projects starting design on or after July 1, 2022, and costing $500,000 or more to identify locations on State rights-of-way that don’t have a complete Americans with Disabilities Act accessible sidewalk or shared-use path, that don’t have a bike lane or adjacent parallel trail or shared-use path, that have such facilities on a state route within a population center with a posted speed over 30 mph and no buffer or physical separation from vehicular traffic for pedestrians and bicyclists, and/or a design that hampers the ability of motorists to see a crossing pedestrian with sufficient time to stop. The Department would be required to consult local jurisdictions about existing and planned active transportation connections along or across those locations; and to identify connections to other existing and planned public transportation services; existing and planned facilities that connect to the location; and the potential use of speed management techniques to minimize crash risks. DOT would be required to lower the speed limit with appropriate roadway design and operations where this approach aligns with local plans or ordinances, particularly in contexts that present a higher possibility of serious crashes. It would have to plan, design, and construct facilities providing context-sensitive solutions needed to integrate the state route into the local network and contributing to connectivity and safety for pedestrians, bicyclists, and people accessing public transportation and other modal connections, including ADA accessible sidewalks or shared-use paths, bike facilities, and crossings .

The bill would have DOT establish two statewide school-based bicycle education grant program, one for elementary and middle school and one for older students, to develop bicycling skills and street safety knowledge. It would be encouraged to consult with the Environmental Justice Council and the Office of Equity in the process. It would  contract with a nonprofit organization with relevant reach and experience, including a statewide footprint and demonstrable experience deploying bicycling and road safety education curriculum via a train the trainer model in schools, for the elementary program, and with a non-profit meeting the same requirements plus experience developing and managing youth-based programming serving youth of color in an after-school and/or community for the junior high and high school program. The elementary program is to identify partner schools according to a long list of equity criteria; provide them with a fleet of bikes; provide a free bike with equipment for participants, and provide in-school bike and pedestrian safety education curriculum, materials, equipment guidance and consultation, and physical education teacher training. The junior high and high school program is to use the equity-based criteria to identify target populations and partner organizations that work with youth from 14 to 18, including schools, community-based organizations, housing authorities, and parks and recreation departments.  It would provide education curriculum, materials, equipment guidance and consultation, and initial instructor/volunteer training, as well as ongoing support to those partners. DOT would report annually to the Legislature’s transportation committees on the programs.

The Department would negotiate with the Oregon Department of Transportation to determine the impacts on ridership, revenue, and policy of eliminating Amtrak Cascades fares for passengers 18 years and younger, and report to the transportation committees on the results and the status of fare policy requests to Amtrak by December 1, 2022. The bill would eliminate ferry fares for these passengers. It would establish a transit support grant program to provide support for operating and capital expenses to transit agencies that maintain or increase their local sales tax authority and have adopted a zero-fare policy for at least passengers 18 and younger. Grants would be prorated according to expenditures for operations; no agency could receive more than 35% of the money; and fuel type could not be a factor in the grant process.

The bill would expand the areas in which speed cameras could be used to include any roadway in a school walk area, public park speed zones, and hospital zones, and would require notification signs for drivers in those zones. It would increase the number of additional cameras that cities with over 195,000 people in a county of over 1.5 million were allowed to install, allowing one for every 10,000 residents in specified areas for cities that have done an equity analysis of livability, accessibility, economics, education, and environmental health, and consider that in their placements. Half of the net revenue from cameras in these new specified zones and the additional cameras authorized for larger cities would go to the State’s Cooper Jones active transportation safety account.

The bill would have the Transportation Commission reevaluate options to improve performance on the Interstate 405 and State Route 167 corridors at least every two years, since it has not met the goal of keeping average vehicle speeds in the express toll lanes above 45 mph at least 90% of the time during peak hours. It would remove the block on spending revenue from various accounts until a compliance path for emissions-intensive, trade-exposed businesses to achieve their share of the state’s emissions reduction through 2050 was in place. (HB1682 is intended to provide that.)

It would create a formal interagency council for coordinating the state’s transportation electrification efforts to ensure it’s leveraging state and federal resources to the best extent possible and to ensure zero emissions incentives, infrastructure, and opportunities are available and accessible to all. This would be led by the Departments of Commerce and Transportation with participation from Ecology; Enterprise Services; the State Efficiency and Environmental Performance Office; Agriculture; Health; the UTC; a representative from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction knowledgeable about student transportation; and other agencies with key roles in electrifying the sector. It would provide ongoing reports to the Governor and appropriate legislative committees. It would develop a statewide transportation electrification strategy to ensure market and infrastructure readiness for all new vehicle sales; identify EV infrastructure grant related funding opportunities, and coordinate grant funding criteria across agency programs to most efficiently distribute state and federal electric vehicle-related funding in a manner that is most beneficial to the state, and advances best practices. It would recommend additional criteria that could be useful in advancing transportation electrification. It would provide ongoing reports to the Governor and appropriate legislative committees.

SB5961

SB5961 – Requires state agencies and local governments to use biochar products in projects when it’s feasible, with various exceptions.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Sefzik (R; 42nd District; Whatcom County) (Co-Sponsor Warnick – R)
Current status – Senate concurred in the House 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 State Government & Tribal Relations February 21st; passed out of committee the 23rd. Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor to limit the requirements to public works projects; specify that the biomass must come from various waste materials; and to not require using it if any of the criteria for exceptions apply rather than all of them. Passed by the House.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks February 1st. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 2nd. Referred to Ways and Means; had a hearing there February 5th; passed out of committee February 7th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate unanimously February 10th.

Summary –
Substitute –
The substitute would require the Department of Natural Resources to implement a pilot project to evaluate the costs and benefits of marketing and selling forest products to a biochar facility. It would determine if revenues cover the costs of preparing and conducting the sales, and identify and evaluate factors impacting those, including regulatory constraints and staffing levels. The project would have to include sales in the Olympic region, and be completed by June 30, 2024. DNR would work with stakeholders and report the results and any recommendations to the appropriate committees of the Legislature By November 1, 2024.

Original bill –
The bill would require state agencies and local governments to use biochar products in projects when they can be utilized. It wouldn’t be required if they weren’t available within a reasonable period; if the available products didn’t comply with purchasing standards;  if they didn’t meet Federal or State health, quality, and safety standards; or if the  prices weren’t reasonable or competitive. It wouldn’t be required of a state agency if the total cost of using it were prohibitive; if applying it would have detrimental impacts on the physical characteristics and nutrient condition of the soil as it is used for a specific crop; or if the project was growing trees in a greenhouse.

SB5849

SB5849 – Extends the reduced B&O tax rate for manufacturers of solar systems and components for five years; creates 10 year property tax exemption for new industrial or manufacturing facilities in designated areas.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Warnick (R; 13th District; Moses Lake)
Current status – Referred to House Finance; had a hearing March 7th, and passed out of committee March 8th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House March 9th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Business, Financial Services & Trade January 25th; passed out of committee January 27th, and referred to Ways and Means. Had a hearing in Ways and Means February 17th, and passed out of committee February 24th. Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor to remove the provisions for tax exemptions in designated distressed areas. Passed by the Senate March 4th.

Summary –
Currently the law reduces the B&O tax rate for manufacturing solar energy systems or solar grade silicon to 0.275%. (The normal B&O tax rate for manufacturing is 0.484%.) The bill would extend the expiration date of this exemption from July 1st 2027 to July 1st 2032.

(It would also extend a 10 year sales and use tax exemption for new Industrial or manufacturing facilities of any and all kinds in designated areas.)

SB5910

SB5910 – Accelerating the availability and use of renewable and electrolytic hydrogen.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Carlyle (D; 36th District; Seattle) (Co-Sponsors Hawkins -R; Billig, Conway, Hunt, Mullet, Saldaña, and Stanford – Ds)
Current status – Passed by the House March 7th. Senate concurred in House amendments March 9th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology January 26th. Replaced by a substitute from the prime sponsor and passed out of committee February 2nd. Referred to Ways and Means. Had a hearing February 5th; passed out of committee on the 7th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate unanimously February 12th.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy on February 22nd. Replaced by a striker that drops the authorizations for municipal utilities and PUDs to produce, use, sell, and distribute some kinds of hydrogen; drops the provision making the Facilities Site Review process available to additional facilities; requires specific commitments from participants in an application for Federal hydrogen hub funding; and makes some other changes that are summarized by staff at the end of it.

Replaced by a striker in Appropriations; amended to make it null and void if funding for it isn’t appropriated, and passed out of committee February 28th. The new striker restores the authorizations for municipal utilities and PUDs to produce, use, sell, and distribute some kinds of hydrogen; it restores the tax breaks for producing electrolytic hydrogen and for the sale of electricity to produce it and renewable hydrogen that the Senate substitute dropped.  It allows Commerce to provide funding (at an appropriated amount, not the earlier version’s $500K) to support applying for Federal hydrogen hub funding. It requires the Department of Revenue to produce guidance for county assessors to refer to in appraising solar and wind projects of at least one megawatt. Referred to Rules; amended on the floor to require utilities to provide certain information to the UTC before replacing natural gas with renewable or electrolytic hydrogen, and to provide some general guidelines for what the UTC is to consider in setting rates for it; passed by the House March 7th.

Summary –
Substitute –
The substitute no longer expands the tax breaks for the production of renewable hydrogen to include electrolytic hydrogen, and no longer provides the tax breaks on the sale of electricity to produce either of them. It moves the Office of Renewable Fuels under the Director of Commerce, removes the $500,000 appropriation to support applying for Federal clean hydrogen hub funding, and it would add facilities for storing any sort of electricity, not just electricity from renewable sources,  to the Energy Facilities Site Council’s permitting process.

Original bill –
The bill would create a Statewide Office of Renewable Fuels, with a Director appointed by the Governor. It would work with other state agencies to:
(a) Accelerate comprehensive market development with assistance along the entire life cycle of renewable fuel projects;
(b) Support research into, development, and deployment of renewable fuel production and distribution.
(c) Drive job creation and support the transition to clean energy;
(d) Enhance resiliency by using renewable fuels to support climate change mitigation and adaption; and
(e) Partner with overburdened communities to ensure they benefit from renewable fuels efforts equitably.

It would also collaborate with local government, state and Federal agencies, private entities, public four-year institutions of higher education, and others on research, development, and deployment efforts in the production, distribution, and use of renewable fuels including electrolytic hydrogen. It would review existing renewable fuels initiatives, policies, and investments; consider opportunities for coordinating public, private, state, and federal funds to develop and deploy renewable fuels; and assess opportunities for and barriers to their deployment in hard to decarbonize sectors of the economy. The Office could request recommendations from the Washington State Association of Fire Marshals on fire and safety standards adopted by authorities.

By July 1, 2024, it would be required to develop a plan and recommendations for the Legislature and Governor on renewable fuels policy and funding including project permitting, state procurement, and pilot projects. It could apply for Federal funds and grants, would collaborate with a range of other agencies, and might work with them on compiling data about the State’s use of renewable fuels.

The bill would appropriate $500,000 for the next biennium to have the Department of Commerce provide funding to one or more local government bodies or a public-private partnership to prepare an application to secure federal funding to locate one of the four planned regional clean hydrogen hub in Washington. The Infrastructure Bill provides $8 million over four years to develop these; they’d work toward achieving a hydrogen fuel carbon intensity goal; would demonstrate the production, processing, delivery, storage, and end use of hydrogen; and would be the basis for developing a national network to facilitate a clean hydrogen economy. (The bill lists some reasons to think Washington would be a good location.) The Director would seek strong and timely applications with a broad range of participants for developing and implementing the hub’s infrastructure, and that had commitments from manufacturing industries, transportation, utilities, and other sectors to incorporate hydrogen fuels into their transition to cleaner energy.

The bill would have the UTC report to appropriate Legislative committees by December 1, 2024 about whether it should regulate rates and services for the production and distribution of hydrogen fuels; and whether the electric utilities it regulates should be required to analyze the costs and benefits of adopting special tariffs for power used in producing electrolytic hydrogen. The report would also address the adoption of safety standards for distributing and dispensing hydrogen fuel; recommended standards for blending it into natural gas distribution infrastructure; and the role it may serve as the state reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

It would make changes in the definitions of the “alternative energy resources” to add projects for producing renewable natural gas, for renewable and electrolytic hydrogen, and for energy storage to the Energy Facilities Site Council’s permitting process. (HB1812 makes some of the same changes, but adds clean energy manufacturing, expands the pre-applicant process to more than transmission facilities, and includes biofuels used for things besides transportation.)
The bill would authorize PUDs to produce, distribute and sell electrolytic hydrogen as well as renewable hydrogen, and authorize municipal utilities to operate with renewable and electrolytic hydrogen as well as natural gas. It would expand the current sales and use tax exemptions for renewable hydrogen (as “electric vehicle infrastructure”), and the exemption from the leasehold excise tax collected instead of property tax form leased public lands  to include electrolytic hydrogen production facilities, in addition to ones for renewable hydrogen.
It would provide a 25 year rebate of the sales tax on electricity used in producing electrolytic hydrogen or renewable hydrogen,  or in compressing, liquifying, or dispensing them, by exempting those sales from the tax if the utility reduced the price for producers by the same amount.

SB5715

SB5715 – Increasing the Statewide Broadband Office’s definition of broadband service to at least 100 megabits per second downloads and 20 megabits per second uploads.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Wellman (D; 41st District; Mercer Island) (Co-Sponsors Sheldon, Randall, and Claire Wilson – Ds)
Current status – Scheduled for a hearing in the House Committee on Community & Economic Development Tuesday February 22nd, and passed out of committee the 23rd. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House March 3rd.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology January 26th, and passed out of committee on February 2nd. Referred to Rules and passed by the Senate unanimously on February 15th.

Summary –
The bill would increase the Statewide Broadband Office’s definition of broadband service to at least 100 megabits per second download and 20 megabits per second upload. (Currently, it’s defined as any service that provides at least 25  Mbps downloads and 3 Mbps uploads.)

 

SB5862

SB5862 – Has the county or county treasurer take any steps in foreclosure proceedings to facilitate the enforcement of a CPACER lien that can’t be done by the capital provider.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Lovelett (D; 40th District; Anacortes) (Co-Sponsors Rivers, Fortunato, Gildon, and Jeff Wilson – Rs; Kuderer, Lovick, Nguyen, Nobles, Stanford, and Claire Wilson – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Local Government February 16th. Passed out of committee February 18th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House March 4th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate – Passed
Passed out of Environment, Energy & Technology January 19th; referred to Housing and Local Government. Had a hearing there January 26th. Replaced by a substitute from the prime sponsor rewriting the section about responsibilities for collection to try to establish that’s the responsibility of the lender, and that the government is not playing a constitutionally impermissible role in the process. Referred to Rules, and passed  by the Senate unanimously February 9th.

Summary –
The bill would have the county or county treasurer undertake any action or obligation in foreclosure proceedings under RCW 84.64.80 to facilitate the enforcement of a CPACER lien that can’t be done by the capital provider or an assignee. It specifies that these are just to “facilitate the enforcement of the C-PACER lien by the capital provider or assignee” and shall not constitute prohibited enforcement activities under RCW 36.165.110, which says that a county “may not enforce any privately financed debt.” Any money received related to delinquent installments would go to the capital provider, who would reimburse the county or the treasurer for their costs.

HB1988

HB1988 – Creates a ten year sales and use tax deferral for projects investing at least $2 million in clean technology manufacturing, clean alternative fuels production, generating renewable electricity, or storing it, with options for reducing or eliminating the deferred taxes.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Shewmake (D; 42nd District; Whatcom County) (Co-Sponsors Berry and Paul – Ds) (By request of the Office of Financial Management.)
Current status – Referred to Senate Ways and Means; had a hearing March 7th and passed out of committee the 9th. Passed by the Senate March 10th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5744 is a companion bill in the Senate.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Finance February 1st; replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 17th. Referred to Appropriations. Had a hearing there February 24th; amended to add a JLARC review after five years and passed out of committee the 28th. Referred to Rules; passed by the House March 4th.

Summary –

Substitute –
The substitute adds making compounds (like ammonia) from green or renewable hydrogen for storing or transporting it to the deferments, along with storage for electricity from any source .  It requires the Department of Labor and Industries to adopt rules with minimum requirements, documentation requirements, consultation requirements, and a certification process for the labor standards in the bill. It would no longer remove renewable hydrogen production facilities from the current sales and use tax exemptions for “electric vehicle infrastructure.”

Original bill –
The bill would defer state and local sales and use taxes on materials and equipment, labor, or services for projects investing at least $2 million in buildings, or machinery and equipment, or both, for any new, renovated, or expanded clean technology manufacturing operation; facility to produce clean fuels or renewable or electrolytic hydrogen; or facility to generate or store electricity from renewable resources. The manufacturing of vehicles with no tailpipe emissions other than water, including motorcycles would be qualified; so would charging and fueling infrastructure for any of those, as well as equipment and facilities for generating renewable and electrolytic hydrogen (including preparing those for distribution); for producing clean fuel with associated greenhouse gas emissions not exceeding 80% of 2017 levels, and for generating electricity from renewable resources or equipment used directly in storing it.

Applications for the deferral could not be submitted after June 30th, 2032. Ten percent of the deferred taxes would become due on December 31st of the second year after completion of the project, and the rest of them would be due in annual payments of 10% at the end of each of the nine following years. (No interest would be charged, except on delinquent payments.)

The State would reduce its part of the taxes to be repaid by half for projects certified by L&I as including procurement from and contracts with women, minority, or veteran-owned businesses; procurement from and contracts with entities that have a history of complying with federal and state wage and hour laws and regulations; apprenticeship utilization; and preferred entry for workers living in the area where the project is being constructed. (If a project was built without one or more of these, the Department would be allowed to certify that it met them if it demonstrated it had made all good faith efforts to do so, but was unable to due to lack of availability of qualified businesses or local hires.) Projects that met these standards and paid workers at prevailing wage rates determined by local collective bargaining would receive a 75% reduction, and those that also were developed under a community workforce or project labor agreement would not have to repay the deferred taxes at all. A person leasing qualified buildings, machinery, and equipment would only receive the tax benefits if the owner agreed to pass them on in writing, and if the lessee agreed in writing with the Department to do the required tax performance reporting.

Construction would have to begin within two years or the taxes would become due. A gradually decreasing percentage of them would be due if the project had not been completed within five years or if it were used for some other purpose that didn’t qualify for the deferment.

The bill would revise a definition so that renewable hydrogen production facilities would no longer be included under the current sales and use tax exemptions as part of “electric vehicle infrastructure.”

SB5842

SB5842 – Making adjustments to the Climate Commitment Act, and creating an Executive Office of Climate Policy and Accountability in the Department of Ecology.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Carlyle (D; 11th District; Seattle) (Co-Sponsors Liias, Das, Nguyen, and Nobles – Ds)
Current status – Senate concurred in the House amendments.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
The provisions about the Office of Climate Policy and Accountability are presumably intended to shape the provision in the cap and invest act which says “The Governor shall establish a governance structure to implement the state’s climate commitment” in accordance with a long list of criteria.

I would have thought that the earlier provision saying the bill preempted the Clean Air Act would have left anything in that which the new bill didn’t cover operable; one of the Senate floor amendments will also repeal it.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 18th. Replaced by a striker eliminating the requirement that the rules for smoothing obligations over time match those of linked jurisdictions; requiring that investments from the price ceiling auctions produce at least a metric ton of reductions for each unit allowing a metric ton of emissions; and making some other small changes. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House March 2nd.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in Environment, Energy & Technology January 26th. Replaced by a substitute from the prime sponsor adding biofuels from wastewater treatment plants to the definition of biomass for the cap and invest bill, and moving a reporting date by six months; passed out of committee February 2nd. Had a hearing in Ways and Means February 4th. Replaced by a 2nd substitute from the prime sponsor and passed out of committee February 7th. (The 2nd substitute would let all covered entities use credits released through the price ceiling mechanisms to meet their compliance obligations. It would allow Ecology to suspend the price floor mechanism if it “might enter into a linkage agreement” with a jurisdiction that doesn’t have one. It specifies that the new Office of Climate Policy and Accountability would only report on the state’s progress in achieving GHG limits, rather than developing a strategic climate work plan; would not represent the State nationally or internationally; and could only implement laws administered by Ecology in accordance with the polices established in the bill and monitor their economic impacts to minimize leakage.) Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor to restrict the use of banked offset credits to those issued in the two years before the bill takes effect (or after that); to direct the Department of Ecology to repeal the Clean Air Act (in addition to saying this bill preempts it); and to drop the provision creating the Office of Climate Policy and Accountability. Passed by the Senate February 11th.

Summary –
Original bill –
Currently, the Climate Commitment Act (aka as the cap and invest program) uses the total state emissions between 2023 and 2025 as the basis for calculating the proportion of an entity’s emissions to total state emissions for entities that begin to be covered by the program during the second compliance period, from 2027 through 2030. The bill would use the total state emissions during 2015 through 2019 instead, which is what it does for entities covered during the first compliance period.

The bill would readopt Section 22 of the original act, about the managing and smoothing of compliance obligations, verbatim, except for the part about the poison pill provisions preventing the Act from taking effect unless an additive transportation package was passed. (The Governor vetoed all those provisions in the bill.) He also vetoed the rest of this section, on the grounds that it primarily provided a convenient summary of compliance obligations that duplicated other passages in the Act, that there weren’t any substantive aspects of the section that Ecology couldn’t adopt and implement through its rulemaking authority, and that it created an internal inconsistency with regard to the expiration date of allowances, because the ability of covered entities to rely on the last seven years of allowances in Section 22(1) conflicted with the unlimited time period for use of allowances in Section 9(2).

The bill would exempt a variety of specified bidding information from public disclosure, as well as information contained in the secure online tracking system, and various submitted financial or proprietary information.

It would narrow the current provision preventing a state agency from adopting or enforcing any other program that regulates greenhouse gas emissions from a stationary source. It would now allow them to adopt and enforce limitations on emissions from stationary sources that are not greenhouse gas pricing or market-based emissions cap and reduce programs, and that are authorized or directed by state statute or required to implement a federal statute, rule, or program.

It would create an Executive Office of Climate Policy and Accountability within the Department of Ecology, reporting to the Director. Its primary purpose would be supporting the state’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, providing accountability to achieve the State’s 2050 emissions limits and providing an accurate inventory of emissions. It would be required to aggressively implement laws and policies to achieve those limits, and would represent the State on national and international emissions reduction policies. It would be required to develop a strategic climate work plan with performance milestones and accountability measures, to present that to the Legislature by January 31, 2024, and to submit a legislative report on progress by January 31, 2025, and every two years afterwards.

Section 7 of the bill would change the name of what’s currently called “an auction ceiling price” to “a reserve auction floor price”, which seems like a confusing choice to me. (The reserve auction floor price is a ceiling price, because extra allowances from the reserve are sold at auction to increase supplies and hold the prices down if they rise above the floor for the reserve auction.)

SB5818

SB5818 – Limits review and appeals under the State Environmental Policy Act and Growth Management Act to promote housing construction in cities.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Salomon (D; 32nd District; Shoreline) (Co-Sponsors Short – R; Liias, Kuderer, and Saldaña – Ds)
Current status – Senate concurred in the House 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 February 24th and passed out of committee. Referred to Rules; replaced by a striker making various changes which are summarized by staff at the end of it; and passed by the House March 4th.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in the Committee on Housing & Local Government  January 20th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 1st. Referred to Rules and passed by the Senate February 15th.

Summary –
Substitute –
The substitute simplifies (and perhaps broadens) the exemption from GMA review and SEPA appeal of some local development regulations by saying it applies to any that “increase housing capacity, increase housing affordability, and mitigate displacement” and aren’t in a critical area. It adds projects creating “light and glare” to those that are exempt from SEPA appeals about aesthetics as long as they’ve passed local design review. The staff summary says it “removes the requirement for Ecology to modify the existing rule-based categorical exemption for single-family residential project types in UGAs to apply only to single-family residential types with total square footage of 1500 square feet or more”. (As I read the bill, there’s no difference in the effect of these two versions.) It drops the provision about awarding attorney’s fees, making it more difficult for citizens to go to court.

Original bill –
The bill would remove the ending date for the current exemption from administrative or judicial appeals under the State Environmental Policy Act of any ordinances, amendments to development regulations, and other nonproject actions a city takes to implement the twenty-five steps the Growth Management Act encourages to increase residential building capacity. (The exemption, which was adopted in 2020, will expire in April 2023 now.) It would add an exemption from environmental or judicial review under SEPA for them. It would exempt adoption of ordinances, amendments to development regulations, and other nonproject actions to implement any strategies adopted in a city’s housing action plan from these SEPA appeals and reviews. (I think that Section 3 of the bill merely adjusts another section of the law to make the same changes, but I wouldn’t swear to it.)

It would exempt any action taken by a city to implement strategies adopted in a housing action plan from review or legal challenge under the Growth Management Act. It would exempt the adoption of any ordinances and amendments to development regulations taken by a city to implement actions specified in the housing element of its comprehensive plan from SEPA environmental or judicial review and administrative or judicial appeal.

It would direct the Department of Ecology to conduct expedited rule making to modify the thresholds for the categorical exemptions from threshold determinations and environmental impact statements in the current SEPA rules to exempt four attached single-family residential units as well as four detached ones; exempt multifamily residential projects of up to 200 units in incorporated urban growth areas rather than projects up to 60 units; exempt single-family residential project types of less than 1,500 square feet in incorporated urban growth areas with up to 100 units, while continuing to cap the current exemption at 30 units for single-family residential projects larger than that.

It would exempt project actions pertaining to residential, multifamily, or mixed-use development from SEPA appeals based on the evaluation of their impacts on aesthetics, or those impacts, unless the project had not been subject to local design review requirements. (I think it merely restates their current exemption from appeals based on the evaluation of their impacts on transportation, or those impacts, unless DOT had found a project would present significant adverse impacts to the state-owned transportation system.)

The bill adds a provision to award reasonable attorneys’ fees to the prevailing party or substantially prevailing party at trial or on appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court of a decision by a county, city, or town to issue, condition, or deny a development permit involving a project-specific affordable housing development.

HB1931

HB1931 – Eliminates the expiration date for the fees Ecology receives for the costs of hydropower licensing.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Fey (D; 27th District; Tacoma) (By request of the Department of Ecology)
Current status – Had a hearing in Ways and Means February 24th, and passed out of committee the 28th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate March 4th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in Appropriations January 25th; passed out of committee February 1st. Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor by the prime sponsor to extend the current expiration date to 2029, and passed by the House February 15th,

Summary –
The bill would eliminates the expiration date for the fees Ecology receives for the costs of hydropower licensing, which is currently June 30th, 2023.

HB1814

HB1814 – Provides a new one-time credit for start-up costs and virtual net metering for community solar projects with low-income and low income service provider subscribers.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Shewmake (D; 42nd District; Whatcom County) (Co-Sponsor Representative Berry -D)
Current status – Referred to Senate Ways and Means, amended to reduce the maximum size of a community solar system back down to 199 KWs, and to make a couple of small technical changes. Passed out of committee March 9th, and passed by the Senate March 10th. House concurred with the Senate amendments the same day.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the Committee on Environment and Energy January 21st. Replaced by a substitute from the prime sponsor and passed out of committee February 1st. Had a hearing in Finance February 7th; replaced by a second substitute and passed out of committee February 21st. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House February 26th,

Summary –
2nd Substitute –
This would raise the program’s  total cap from @20 million to $100 million; and the biennial cap from $5 million to $25 million. It would increase the eligible system size from 199 kWs to 1,000, and authorize including storage in projects and providing incentives for up to 100% of its cost. This version would have a utility that’s administering a project over 100kWs deliver payments for the power it generates, minus approved administrative costs, to its low income subscribers in some form that provides continuing direct benefits to them, such as rate reductions. If the administrator isn’t a utility, payments for the power would be made to the retail customer where the project was located according to a written agreement with the utility, and then distributed by the administrator to subscribers, minus administrative costs. (Presumably, there also has to be an agreement between the customer that’s hosting the site and the administrator about passing those payments on, though I don’t see that in the bill.)

Substitute –
The substitute eliminates the $500 pre-application fee; it cleans up and clarifies the drafting of the bill in a number of ways, which are summarized by staff at the beginning of it.

Original bill –
The bill would create a low-income community solar incentive program for new projects between twelve kilowatts and 199 kilowatts with at least two subscribers or one low-income service provider subscriber. If the utility providing service in their area chose to participate in the program, community solar projects could submit applications for precertification to the WSU Energy Extension Program from July 1st 2022 through June 30th 2033, demonstrating how the project would deliver continuing direct benefits to low income, low income service provider, public agency or tribal subscribers. Projects could be administered by a utility, a non-profit, a housing authority, or by a tribal housing authority if the project were on tribal land. (These benefits could include the credits for the project’s power or other mechanisms that lower participants’ energy burden. Only the portion of a public or tribal agency subscription that was demonstrated to benefit low-income beneficiaries would count as a subscription qualifying for the incentives.) Projects would have to be on sites that didn’t displace critical habitat or productive farmland, but dual use agrivoltaic projects that ensured ongoing agricultural operations would be eligible.

Administrators would have two years after an application was precertified by the Energy Program to complete the project and actually get certified to receive the incentives, though they could request a 180 day extension if they could demonstrate significant progress. The Energy Program would be required to review each project for reasonable cost and financial structure, with a targeted installed cost of $2/watt DC for systems over 200 kWs and $2.25 per watt DC for systems under 200 kWs, excluding costs associated with storage systems and electrical improvements to permit grid-independent operation, but they might approve projects that were more or less expensive based on a review. (The Energy Program could also review and adjust the cost per watt target for each biennium.)

Within 60 days of certification, participating utilities would provide a one-time low-income community solar incentive payment to the administrator of the project to be used to provide direct benefits to its subscribers. The payment would cover up to $20,000 of the “project’s administrative costs related to the administrative start-up of the project for qualifying subscribers.”  [That seems to contradict the language saying the payment must be used to provide direct benefits, and another section of the bill says that the administrator can collect a reasonable fee to cover costs incurred in organizing and administering the project provided subscribers are notified about that before signing up. I’m not sure how these are supposed to fit together; maybe this is supposed to mean that subscribers have to pay for the work of getting themselves subscribed, but they get paid back if the program gets certified? Perhaps the fee has to come out of the payments for production….] The upfront payment would also include “up to 100% of the proportion of the installed cost of the share of the project that provides direct benefits to subscribers”, taking into account any federal tax credits or other grants or incentives from which the program is benefiting. [This reads as if it could be any amount below 100%, but there’s nothing else  in the bill about how to determine its level, so it may be supposed to mean this should be 100% of that cost, but no more than that – if some of the total cost is providing benefits that aren’t going to qualified providers, but to an agency, for example.] To reimburse utilities for these payments, the bill would create a new credit against their public utility taxes, not to exceed the greater of 1.5% of their year’s taxable power sales or $200,000. The utility would also provide net metering in accordance with the State’s current provisions for projects with a nameplate capacity between 12 kilowatts and 100 kilowatts AC, crediting the metered customer’s bill for production at the retail rate per kilowatt.  (The utility would set the rate at which it paid for the production from any larger projects in an agreement with the project.) The administrator would be required to pass payments for production on to the subscribers, after deducting reasonable administrative costs approved by the Extension Program. [It’s not clear how this approval process is supposed to work with the fee the subscribers were notified about before signing up.] The administrator or the utility would report each year on the energy production for the period, each subscriber’s units, and the date and amount disbursed to each subscriber.

The program would have a total cap of $20 million, a cap of $300,000 for 2023, and a cap of $5 million for any later year. The Energy Program would be required to try to distribute incentive funds equitably throughout the state, by including measures such as reserving or allocating them based on the proportion of public utility taxes collected, the proportion of the State’s low-income customers served by each utility (based on Low-income Home Energy Assistance Program data, and measures to achieve an equitable geographic distribution of community solar installations and a diversity of administrative models for projects. It would be required to use at least $2,000,000 of the funding for the entire program to support nonprofit organizations’ innovative approaches to allocating benefits to subscribers; to defining and valuing benefits to be provided to subscribers; or to other aspects of the subscriber, administrator, system host, and utility relationship. It would be required to ensure that at least $2,000,000 of the funding was available to tribes. It would be required to maintain a website with information about the program, including a monthly report of the number of certifications, and an estimate of the remaining unallocated funding for incentives.

I’ve been told that the first sections of this bill are intended to sunset the most recent State production incentive program with no new funding, while the Code Reviser’s summary says it terminates the application period for that program (which hit its cap early but was still required by the law to accept applications) on June 30, 2020, rather than June 30, 2021,  and that it extends the date by which precertified community solar projects may become certified under the program from June 30, 2021 to June 30, 2022. So far, I can’t make sense of the actual language in those sections. The extension in the bill applies to shared commercial projects as well; I don’t understand whether the projects that were precertified and managed to get certified during those two years would actually be eligible for funding somehow. I don’t know whether projects that got on the waitlist after the program hit its cap were precertified and would now be eligible for certification and incentives.

Details –
The bill would now require the RECs from these community solar projects to be retired, rather than allowing the utility to keep them as part of the contract for a project. Subscribers who moved within the utility’s service area would continue to receive net metering credits on their bills, but if they left the area, the administrator would be authorized to transfer those to another qualified subscriber.

HB1812

HB1812 – Including clean energy projects in the Energy Facilities Site Council’s permitting and monitoring, shifting the UTC’s current responsibilities in that process to the Council, and making administrative changes.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Fitzgibbon (D; 34th District; Vashon Island & Southwest Seattle) (Co-Sponsors Representatives Wylie & Berry – Ds) (By request of the Governor.)
Current status – House concurred in the Senate amendments; the sections of the bill about consulting with rural stakeholders and reviewing inequities in the siting of renewable energy projects were vetoed by the Governor.
Next step would be – Signed into law except for Sections 19-22.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in Environment and Energy January 25th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 3rd. (The substitute would retain hearings in the process rather than converting them to meetings; would allow any facility in the  process to apply for expedited permitting, rather than only energy facilities; broadens the definition of clean energy manufacturing facilities to include any form of transportation without exhaust other than water rather thanto  the original’s specified list; makes storage facilities include ones for electricity from any source; and makes other small changes summarized by staff at the beginning of it. ) Referred to Appropriations, and had a hearing February 7th; amended to make the bill null and void if funding weren’t appropriated for it, and passed out of committee February 7th. Referred to Rules. Replaced by a striker from the prime sponsor on the floor, amended, and passed by the House February 13th. The striker removed the option for tribes to appoint two members to the Council, removed clean fuel from the definition of clean manufacturing facilities, and made a few other small changes that are summarized by staff at the end of it. The amendment would create a joint select committee on alternative energy facility siting, with specified membership, to review inequities in where large alternative energy projects have been and are forecast to be sited, and to review forms of economic development assistance, mitigation payments, and viewshed impairment payments that counties not hosting their per capita share of alternative energy resources should provide to counties that host more than their per capita share. The amendment would require the Department of Ecology  to consult with stakeholders from rural communities, agriculture, and forestry on the benefits and impacts of anticipated changes in the state’s energy system, including the siting of facilities, using the environmental justice community engagement plan, with input from the Environmental Justice Council. It specifies topics to be included in the process, and what’s to be included in a report on rural clean energy and resilience to the committee and other government bodies.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology February 17th. Replaced by a striker making a number of minor changes that are summarized at the end of it; passed out of committee February 23rd. Referred to Ways and Means, had a hearing there February 26th, and passed out of committee the 28th. Passed by the Senate March 3rd.

Summary –
Original bill –
The bill would add projects for producing renewable natural gas, renewable and electrolytic hydrogen, biofuel for other uses than transportation, and energy storage facilities to the Energy Facilities Site Council’s permitting process. It would also add manufacturing facilities for clean fuel and vehicles (or their components), for equipment for charging and fueling them, for equipment for the production of alternative energy and for energy storage. It would shift the Utilities and Transportation Commission’s role and responsibilities in the current process to the Council, removing the UTC from the process completely.

The bill would replace a representative of the Department of Natural Resources on the Council with a representative of the Commissioner of Public Lands. It would authorize the governing bodies or executive officials of up to two tribes with ancestral lands in the area where an energy facility is proposed to each appoint a member of the Council , sitting and voting when it considered the proposed site.  It would add ongoing regulatory oversight of energy facilities in accordance with its environmental and ecological guidelines to the Council’s powers. It would allow it to enter into contracts to carry out the other provisions of the Act for siting energy facilities in addition to studies of sites proposed by applicants, and authorize it to conduct some meetings on the proposed location and operational conditions of facilities rather than legal hearings. It clarifies that certification from the Council is required for the reconstruction of facilities over a certain size as well as for their construction. It would allow applicants to chose to apply for certification from the Council for the construction, reconstruction, or modification of electrical transmission facilities with a nominal voltage of at least 115,000 volts that are located in more than one jurisdiction with land use plans or zoning ordinances, even if they are not outside a current corridor. It would require notifying the county and city legislative authorities where the proposed facility would be located and tribal governments
affected by the proposed facility when an application for siting one was received. It would require the Council to work with local governments where a project was proposed and with tribal governments affected by a proposed facility to provide for meaningful participation and input during siting review and compliance monitoring. It would require the chair and designated staff to offer to conduct government-to-government meetings to address tribal issues of concern, and would require the Council’s reporting to the Governor to include a summary of any government-to-government meetings, including the issues and proposed resolutions.

It would remove the current language prohibiting a city, county, or regional planning authority from changing land use plans or zoning ordinances so as to affect the site of a proposed site after a hearing by the Council had determined the project was in compliance with those. It would require the Council’s director to notify an applicant before making a threshold determination that a facility proposed in a site application would have a probable significant, adverse environmental impact and to provide an opportunity to amend the application. It would require someone who wished to testify at the public hearing required before the Council issued its recommendation to the Governor to already have raised their issue in writing with specificity during the application review process before the hearing. If the environmental impact of a proposed facility were not significant or would be mitigated to a nonsignificant level, the bill would allow the Council to limit that hearing to whether any land use plans or zoning ordinances with which the proposed site has been determined to be inconsistent should be preempted. If the Council granted expedited processing to a project it would have to hold a public meeting to take comments on the application before issuing a recommendation to the Governor.

With the exception of transmission projects, the bill would require the Council to review a preapplicant’s draft materials on request and provide comments on additional studies or stakeholder and tribal input that should be included in the formal application.  It would change the provisions allowing the Council to conduct a preliminary study of a site upon request of any potential applicant, making the appointment of  an independent consultant to study the project an option for the Council rather than a requirement, and removing the specifications about what might be included. It would no longer allow such a study to be used in place of the “detailed statement” about projects required for other State agencies and local governments by the State Environmental Policy Act.

The bill would exempt the Director of the Council, the Director’s personal secretary, and two designated staff members from the Civil Service Law.

 

SB5678

SB5678 – Provides for preliminary declarations by the UTC on whether proposed energy projects would comply with a utility’s requirements for reducing greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Energy Transformation Act.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Short (R; 7th District; Northeast Washington.) (Co-Sponsor Senator Carlyle- D)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 22nd; referred to Rules; passed by the Senate March 4th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in Environment, Energy & Technology January 13th; replaced by a substitute, which limits the option of seeking a declaratory order to investor owned utilities and clarifies a couple of procedural things. Passed out of committee January 27th. Referred to Ways and Means; had a hearing February 4th and passed out of committee the 7th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate February 12th.

Summary –
Original bill –
The bill would allow a private utility or the person proposing an energy transformation project, nonemitting electric generation project, or renewable resource project that might be acquired by the utility to petition the Utilities and Transportation Commission for a declaratory order to determine whether the project would comply with the utility’s need to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in order to comply with the Clean Energy Transformation Act. Projects that the UTC determined would comply with the requirements could be identified in a utility’s Clean Energy Action Plan and its Clean Energy Implementation Plan. The Commission could reevaluate a resource or a project in considering whether to approve a Clean Energy Implementation Plan or in a rate case, if it deviated substantively from the one described in the application foe a declaratory order.

(In fact, the last section of the bill says that “nothing” in the section of it about the declaratory orders “preempts the authority of the commission from making a determination, independent of the processes under [that] section … on whether a proposed energy transformation project, nonemitting electric generation project, or renewable resource project … meets the planning and portfolio requirements of an investor-owned utility’s Clean Energy Implementation Plan.)

SB5714

SB5714 – Creates sales and use tax deferments for large solar canopies on commercial, industrial & residential parking lots.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Carlyle (D; 36th District; Northwest Seattle.) (Co-Sponsor Senator Liias – D)
Current status – Referred to House Finance; had a hearing and passed out of committee March 8th. (There were four proposed amendments; though the Legislature’s website doesn’t indicate whether they failed, none of them seem to have made it into the current version of the bill.) Referred to Rules, and passed by the House March 9th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
The bill’s findings say that the initial capital costs of installing solar generation on parking lot canopies will in most cases be fully amortized over time with the power generated and sold into the electricity system, but that initial capital costs may deter incorporation of installations into new projects.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in Environment, Energy & Technology January 13th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee January 27th. Referred to Ways and Means. Had a hearing there  February 17th, and passed out of committee the 24th. Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor to add specifications for the development of the labor standards rules, and passed by the Senate March 4th.

Summary –
Substitute –
The substitute reduces the amount of deferred tax owed by 25%, 50%. or 100% if various labor standards are met, and requires complete repayment of the taxes owed in eight years.

Original bill –
The bill would defer the sales and use taxes for solar canopies with at least a megawatt of capacity in parking lots for commercial, industrial and residential buildings. (If I’ve done the arithmetic correctly, this would be roughly 50,000 sq. ft. of panels.) Applications for the deferral would include the location of the project, its estimated or actual costs, time schedules for its completion and operation, anticipated nameplate capacity and use of the electricity, and any other information the Department of Revenue required. They could be filed until June 30th, 2032.

Applicants would have to begin actual construction on a project within a year of receiving a deferral certificate, unless it was delayed due to circumstances beyond the recipient’s control. (Problems with funding would not count.) Recipients would have to pay any taxes incurred if they didn’t begin construction within a year, and would have to notify the Department if a completed project was going to produce less than 85% of the electricity originally assumed. If a project wasn’t completed within two years, or the Department found it wasn’t being used as a qualifying solar canopy at any time within eight years of its completion, a gradually decreasing proportion of the deferred taxes would be due, with interest.

The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee would be required to evaluate the program, considering the number of solar canopies receiving the deferral, their average and total electric output, the total beneficiary savings from the tax preference, the estimated reduction in greenhouse gas emissions assuming an equivalent amount of energy would otherwise been generated through the combustion of fossil fuels, and any other metrics the committee finds relevant.

HB1815

HB1815 – Marking catalytic converters with identifiers to more effectively track their ownership and identify stolen property, and creating a task force to address converter thefts.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Ryu (D; 32nd District; Shoreline) (Co-Sponsors Representatives Boehnke & Chase – Rs;  J. Johnson, Berry, Fitzgibbon, Orwall, Shewmake, Leavitt,  Sells, and Gregerson – Ds)
Current status – House concurred in Senate amendments.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5495 also addresses converter thefts; so do HB1873 and HB1994.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the Committee on Public Safety January 18th. Replaced by a substitute making minor changes and passed out of committee January 27th. Referred to Transportation. Replaced by a 2nd Substitute eliminating the pilot converter tracking project, converting the task force to a work group, and adding a member representing auto manufacturers and one representing converter manufacturers. It would have the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs establish a grant and training program, when funded, to assist local law enforcement targeting metal theft. Voted out of committee February 7th; referred to Rules; amended on the House floor to make two very minor changes and passed February 12th.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Law and Justice February 21st. Replaced by a striker making various adjustments that are summarized by staff at the end of it; passed out of committee and referred to Transportation February 24th. Had a hearing there February 26th; amended to have WSU do the catalytic convertor theft study rather than the Joint Transportation Committee, and passed out of Transportation February 28th. Referred to Rules, replaced by yet another striker, amended, and passed by the Senate March 4th.

The bill now has the WSU catalytic converter theft work group; requires any scrap metal dealer’s transactions for a catalytic converter to have documentation indicating that it came from  a vehicle registered in the seller’s name;  and limits immediate payment for any non-ferrous metal transaction to $30 unless there’s a retained image of the material as well as the seller’s government ID. It also says there must be a three day delay for payments to individual sellers. (I don’t see how this fits with the previous bit.)  A floor amendment added similar requirements for auto wreckers. It adds a $1,000 fine per converter to the current penalties for scrap metal dealing offenses, and makes converter transactions without the required records violations of the Consumer Protection Act. The Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs  would now be responsible for making recommendations on reducing converter theft (including considering the possibility of a marking program), as well as the grant and training program. People who attempted to purchase or sell unlawfully obtained metals at licensed scrap metal recyclers or to conduct a transaction under the influence of controlled substances would be added to the no-buy database.

Summary –
If funds were appropriated for it, the Washington State Patrol would establish a catalytic converter tracking pilot project intended to deter the theft of converters by marking them with vehicle identification numbers or other unique identifiers. The Patrol would collaborate with law enforcement, insurance companies and scrap metal dealers to identify the vehicles most frequently targeted for converter theft and establish the most effective methods for marking permanently marking them. Materials to arrange for the marking of the converters of vehicles most likely to be stolen at no cost to the owners would be distributed to dealers, automobile repair shops and service centers, law enforcement agencies, and community organizations. The Patrol would make any educational information resulting from the project available to law enforcement agencies and scrap metal dealers, and report to the Legislature by October 1, 2023, describing the progress, results, and any findings, including the number of converters marked, and, to the extent known, whether any marked converters were stolen and the outcome of any criminal investigation into the thefts.

The bill would also create a task force to review state laws related to theft of converters. It would be required to develop recommendations for:
(a) Deterring catalytic converter theft;
(b) Developing tools to identify and recover stolen converters; and
(c) Lowering costs to victims of converter theft.
It might also develop recommendations related to:
(a) Maintenance and accessibility of law enforcement records
related to transactions involving converters; and,
(b) Traceability of payments related to those.

Members would be appointed by the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, and consist of a Democrat and a Republican from each chamber (one of whom would be elected as the chair by the members), and a member from the State Patrol, the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, the Office of Public Defense; the Superior Court Judges’ Association, the District and Municipal Court Judges’ Association, the Association of Washington Cities, the Office of the Attorney General, the property and casualty insurance industry, the scrap metal recycling industry, the Washington Organized Retail Crime Association, and two members representing individuals with lived experience being charged with, or convicted of, organized theft. The members would choose one legislator and one nonlegislative member as cochairs, and the Patrol would be authorized to contract with one or more consultants to provide data analysis, research, and other services the task force decided it needed.

HB1799

HB1799 – Diverting organic materials from landfills, increasing composting, and reducing food waste.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Fitzgibbon (D; 34th District; Vashon Island & Southwest Seattle.) (Co-Sponsor Representative Berry – D)
Current status – House concurred in Senate amendments March 8th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5731 is a companion bill in the Senate.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in Environment & Energy January 21st. Replaced by a substitute by the prime sponsor and passed out of committee February 1st. Referred to Appropriations, had a hearing and passed out of committee on February 7th. (I don’t know if an amendment to make the bill null and void unless funding for it were appropriated passed or not – it’s labeled “Checked”.) Referred to Rules. Replaced by a striker from the prime sponsor making various adjustments which are summarized by staff at the end of it and passed by the House February 14th.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology February 17th. Replaced by a striker dropping the Good Samaritan pricing provision, removing extended producer responsibility programs for packaging and paper products from the waste management funding study, and making some other changes which are summarized by staff at the end of it. Passed out of committee February 23rd. Referred to Ways and Means; had a hearing there February 26th; and passed out of committee the 28th. Amended on the floor to prohibit expanding any existing organic materials management facility that processed more than 200,000 tons of material in 2019 (with the exception of anaerobic digesters); to exempt jurisdictions with between 25,000 and 50,000 people and without curbside organics collection from the organics collection service requirements, and to add a labeling requirement for nonfood contact film products. Passed by the Senate March 3rd.

Summary –
The substitute delays some local requirements by two years, drops the ban on non-compostable produce stickers, makes the compost reimbursement program permanent, and makes a lot of other small changes which are summarized by staff at the beginning of it.

Original bill –
The bill would add to the State’s current food waste reduction goals by establishing goals to reduce the disposal of organic materials in landfills by 75% from 2015 levels by 2030, and to recover at least 20% of the amount of edible food that was disposed of in 2015 for human consumption by 2025. It defines “organic materials management” to include vermiculture, black soldier fly, or similar technologies as well as composting and anaerobic digestion.

Jurisdictions would be required to provide organic solid waste collection services to all their residents and businesses that generate more than .5 cubic yard of organic materials; and provide for their organic management. (Jurisdictions disposing of less than 5,000 tons of solid waste or with populations under 25,000, census tracts with fewer than 75 people per square mile in unincorporated portions of a county,and areas receiving waivers for up to five years from the Department of Ecology on the basis of factors including the distance to organic management facilities, the facilities’ ability to manage additional organic materials, and current restrictions on their transport would be exempt. However, Ecology could apply the requirements to sparse census tracts and areas with waivers after January 2030 if it determined that the new goals had not or would not be achieved.) Counties’ and cities’ solid waste plans would be required to be consistent with the new goals, to identify the capacity for organic management needed to meet them, to consider other methods of managing organics in addition to composting and anaerobic digestion, and to identify priority areas for that in industrial zones in the jurisdiction (and not in overburdened areas). The bill would add composting and other organic materials management facilities to the list of local public works projects eligible for State loans, grants, financing guarantees, and technical assistance through the Public Works Board. By 2023, local governments would be required to adopt a compost procurement ordinance and a procurement plan to implement the State’s current requirements for using compost in projects, giving priority to purchasing compost products from companies that produce them locally, are certified by a nationally recognized organization, and produce compost from municipal solid waste, and meet quality standards comparable to those adopted by the Department of Transportation or Ecology.

Beginning January 1, 2024, the bill would require a business that generates at least eight cubic yards of organic waste per week that isn’t managed on site to arrange for organic materials management of that; beginning in 2025 the requirement would apply to businesses generating at least four cubic yards, and beginning in 2026, businesses that generate at least four cubic yards of any solid waste per week would have to arrange for organic management of their organic waste, unless the department determined that additional reductions in the landfilling of organic materials would be better achieved, at reasonable cost to businesses, by establishing a different threshold. Businesses could fulfill the requirements by:
(a) Source separating organic waste and subscribing to a service with organic waste collection and materials management;
(b) Managing its organic waste on-site or hauling its own organic waste for organic management; or
(c) Qualifying for exclusion from the requirements of this section consistent with subsection (1)(b) of this section.
Businesses’ contracts for gardening or landscaping service would have to require that the organic waste be managed organically. (The requirements wouldn’t apply in areas of a jurisdiction with no available businesses that collect and deliver organic materials to solid waste facilities that provide for the organic materials management of it and food waste, and would not apply at all in jurisdictions with no available capacity at the solid waste facilities to which businesses that collect and deliver organic materials could feasibly and economically deliver them.)

The bill would modify the current Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, which reduces gleaners and food donors exposure to liability, by only requiring  the “apparently fit grocery products” it covers to meet all safety and safety-related labeling standards; those would not include certain current required pull dates or a “best by,” “best if used by,” “use by,” “sell by,” or similarly phrased date intended to communicate information about the freshness or quality of a product to consumers. The bill would allow donors to be paid for the costs of handling, administering, and distributing donated food and grocery products, and would allow charging needy individuals that much for them.

The bill would create a Washington Center for Sustainable Food Management at the Department of Ecology to help coordinate statewide food waste reduction. It would be authorized to:
(a) Coordinate the implementation of the State’s food waste reduction plan;
(b) Draft plan updates and measure progress on actions and strategies, and toward the statewide goals established in the bill and that plan;
(c) Maintain a website with current food waste reduction information and guidance for food service establishments, consumers, food processors, hunger relief organizations, and other sources of food waste;
(d) Provide staff support to multistate food waste reduction initiatives in which the state is participating;
(e) Maintain the consistency of the plan and other food waste reduction activities with the work of the Conservation Commission’s food policy forum;
(f) Facilitate and coordinate public-private and nonprofit partnerships focused on food waste reduction;
(g) Collaborate with federal, state, and local government partners on food waste reduction initiatives;
(h) Develop and maintain maps or lists of locations of the food systems of Washington that identify food flows, where waste occurs, and opportunities to prevent food waste;
(i) Collect and maintain data on food waste and wasted food;
(j) Research and develop emerging organics and food waste reduction markets;
(k) Develop and maintain statewide food waste reduction and food waste contamination reduction campaigns, in consultation with other state agencies and other stakeholders, including the development of materials may inform food service operators about the protections from civil and criminal liability under federal law and under the Samaritan Donation Act when donating food; and develop guidance in support of distribution of promotional materials by local health officers as part of routine inspections, and State agencies; and,
(l) Distribute and monitor grants for food waste prevention, rescue, and recovery.
The Center would be required to research and adopt several model ordinances for optional use by counties and cities that provided mechanisms for commercial solid waste collection and disposal designed, in part, to establish disincentives for generating organic waste and for landfilling organic materials. Ecology would do a State Environmental Policy Act review of these, and actions by jurisdictions adopting them would not be subject to its requirements. The department would be authorized to establish a voluntary reporting protocol for reports by businesses that donate food and recipients, could encourage its use, and could also request information about  the volumes, types, and timing of food managed by a facility, and the food it generated

The bill would make the purchase of compost spreading equipment or financial assistance to farmers to purchase that eligible for grants from the Sustainable Farms and Fields program, if it were for annual use for at least three years with significant volumes of compost from a composting site that wasn’t owned or operated by the farmer. If funds were appropriated for it, the Department of Agriculture would be required to create a three-year pilot program to reimburse farming operations for up to $10,000 a year or 50% of the costs of purchasing and using compost products that were not generated by them, including transportation, equipment, spreading, and labor costs. To be eligible an operation would have to complete an eligibility review to ensure that the proposed transport and application of compost products is consistent with the Department’s agricultural pest control rules, to verify that it would allow soil sampling to be conducted by upon request during the duration program as necessary to establish a baseline of soil quality and carbon storage and for subsequent evaluations to assist the department’s reporting, and release the State from any claims based on the use of the compost. The Department of Agriculture would have to report to the appropriate committees of the Legislature, including the amount of compost for which reimbursement was sought under the program; the qualitative or quantitative effects of the program on soil quality and carbon storage; and an evaluation of the benefits and costs to the state of continuing, expanding, or furthering the strategies it explored.

The bill would authorize the Department of Ecology to pursue false or misleading claims for plastic products claiming to be “compostable” or “biodegradable”, rather than the Attorney General. It would shift the definition of “Supplier” in the State’s Plastic Product Degradability law  to make manufacturers (or importers into the State, if the State lacked authority over the manufacturers) responsible for compliance with it. It would require plastics labeled as compostable to use green, beige, or brown labeling, striping, or other design patterns that help differentiate them from noncompostable materials, prohibit the use of similar schemes on plastics and food service products that weren’t compostable, and would add beige to the acceptable colors in the current State rules about making it easy to identify compostable plastic film products. It would prohibit plastic produce stickers that were not biodegradable.

It would shift the State’s share of  the responsibility for enforcing the Plastic Product Degradability law from the Attorney General to Ecology, specify that it’s enforcement must be  based primarily on complaints filed with the Department and cities and counties, require the Department to create ways to file complaints, and require it, cities and counties to provide education and outreach activities to inform retail establishments, consumers, and suppliers about the requirements of the law.

SB5722

SB5722 – Creates a benchmarking and energy management program (and eventual performance standards) for multifamily buildings of at least 50,000 sq. ft. and other buildings between 20,000 and 50,000 sq.ft.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Nguyen (D; 34th District; Vashon Island & Southwest Seattle.) (Co-Sponsor Senator Liias – D) (By request of the Governor.)
Current status – Senate concurred in House amendments.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1774 is a companion bill in the House. (Dead bill)

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in Environment, Energy & Technology January 13th. Replaced with a substitute by the prime sponsor and passed out of committee February 2nd. Referred to Ways and Means. Had a hearing February 4th and passed out of committee February 7th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate February 12th.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy February 17th, and passed out of committee February 22nd. Referred to Appropriations; amended to make it null and void if funding for it isn’t appropriated; and passed out of committee February 28th. Referred to Rules. Replaced by a striker on the floor delaying the start date of the expanded early adoption incentive program for smaller buildings by a year, to July 2025, and making a couple other minor changes. (I now think the bill caps these expanded incentives at $150 million.) Passed by the House March 3rd.

Summary –
Substitutes –
The substitute would expand the current early adoption incentive program to include buildings where the sum of multifamily, nonresidential, hotel, motel, and dormitory areas is between 20,000 and 50,000 square feet. They’d get 30¢/sq.ft for implementing their benchmarking, energy management, and operations and maintenance planning requirements without having to meet the performance standards for bigger buildings, and these incentives would be available for buildings using gas, without regard to their greenhouse gas emissions. Multifamily buildings over 50,000 sq. ft. would be eligible for these incentives as well, rather than being able to choose to apply for the 85¢/sq.ft. incentives for early compliance with the performance standards for non-residential over 50,000 sq.ft as they could in the first version of the incentives. Owners could apply from July 1, 2024 to July 1, 2030. (I think the bill would allow another $75 million for these incentives, and that the additional funding would not be available for the previous phase of incentives, which reached their $75 million cap very quickly, but the language of that provision isn’t very clear.)

The bill also requires a small business impact statement, and an appeals process for administrative decisions including penalties. It would authorize enhanced incentive payments for building owners committing to anti-displacement provisions rather than limiting incentives for multifamily buildings to those limiting increase in rent to inflation for four years.

Original bill –
By December 31, 2023, the bill would have the Department of Commerce create a benchmarking and energy management requirement for multifamily buildings of at least 50,000 sq. ft. and buildings where the sum of multifamily, nonresidential, hotel, motel, and dormitory areas is between 20,000 and 50,000 square feet. The requirements are to be consistent with the current Clean Buildings energy performance standards for non-residential buildings over 50,000 sq ft, but are limited to energy use analysis through benchmarking and reporting, energy management planning, and operations and maintenance planning. The Department would be required to create an actual performance standard for these buildings by 2030, and the bill would authorize it to establish targets for buildings’ greenhouse gas-adjusted energy use intensity in this and the current performance standards.)

Commerce would provide a support program for building owners including outreach and informational materials connecting them to utility resources, periodic training, phone and email support, and other technical assistance. It would have to include enhanced technical support such as assistance with benchmarking and planning for buildings whose owners typically don’t employ dedicated managers, such as multifamily housing, child care facilities, and houses of worship. The bill also says the department “shall consider” underresourced buildings with a high energy use per square foot, buildings in rural communities, buildings whose tenants are primarily small businesses, and those located in high-risk communities according to the Department of Health’s environmental health disparities map. [I think that probably means it’s supposed to consider what additional support owners of those buildings might need, and provide that, but it’s not clear.] (The requirements would also have to include provisions for financial hardship.)

Commerce would also be required to establish an incentive program to supplement the cost to building owners or tenants, less utility incentives and annual savings resulting from the requirements. It would have to require that tenants’ rent could not be raised at a rate above inflation for four years after receiving the incentives.

The Department would have to notify the owners of covered buildings of the requirements by July 1, 2025, and owners would have to file reports demonstrating they’d developed and implemented the bill’s required procedures by July 1st, 2027 and every five years after that. It would adopt rules imposing a penalty of not more than 30 cents a square foot for failing to submit documentation demonstrating compliance with the requirements, or for increasing rent above the rate of inflation for multifamily leased space receiving the incentives. (Penalties would be deposited in the low-income weatherization and structural rehabilitation assistance account and reinvested into the program to support compliance with the standard.) [I think this means the actual performance standard to be established by 2030.]

The department would have to evaluate the benchmarking data to determine energy use and greenhouse gas emissions averages by building type, and report to the Legislature and the Governor by October 1, 2029, with recommendations for cost-effective building performance standards for the covered buildings, their estimated costs for building owners, and anticipated implementation challenges.

By December 31st, 2030, the Department would be required to adopt rules to add these buildings to the State’s energy performance standard program. It would have to consider the age of buildings in setting performance targets, and might establish a longer timeline for compliance by multifamily buildings than for the other buildings covered by the bill. The rules could not take effect until the end of the 2031 regular session.

HB1793

HB1793 – Creates rules for owners’ installations of charging stations in common interest communities such as condominiums, cooperative apartments, and developments with homeowners’ associations.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Hackney (D; 11th District; South Seattle, Renton, Tukwila.) (Co-Sponsors Representatives Fitzgibbon & Berry – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Law and Justice February 17th. (An amendment to allow charging a reasonable fee for the placement of a charging station was initially reported as passing, but actually failed.) Passed out of committee February 24th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate March 1st.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in Civil Rights & Judiciary January 18th; replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee January 28th. Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor by the prime sponsor and passed by the House February 9th.

Summary –

Floor amendment in the House –
This drops the provision allowing an association to  charge the cost of an infrastructure upgrade to meet the power needs of chargers against the unit owners who have them, and requires a written disclosure of some more details about an installed charger to a buyer. It drops the language saying charging equipment is not real property, and no longer says the owner may either remove the EVCS or sell it to the buyer or to the association upon sale of the apartment, unit, or lot. [I don’t know if these last two changes have any significant practical implications or not…]

Substitute –
The substitute no longer allows an association to authorize installing a charger in a common area, or to create a new parking space to facilitate installing a charger; allows alternative ways for a vehicle owner to pay a charger’s electricity besides a separate meter; requires sellers to make disclosures about installed chargers; no longer requires a certificate of insurance from homeowners in associations subject to the Homeowners’ Associations Act; and specifies that the requirement for a certificate from unit owners in associations subject to the Washington Uniform Common Interest Act only applies to certain types of those.

Original bill –
The bill would prevent an apartment owners’ association from prohibiting or unreasonably restricting the installation or use of an electric vehicle charging station in a designated parking space for the personal use of an apartment owner. The association might impose reasonable restrictions on charging stations, and could require an owner to submit an application in advance for approval for the installation. (It would have to be processed and approved in the same way as an application for approval of an architectural modification, would have to be approved or denied in writing within sixty days, and would automatically take effect at the end of that period if it hadn’t been denied by then, unless the delay resulted from a reasonable request for information.) An association could charge a reasonable fee for processing an application if there were a fee for all applications for architectural modifications. It would have to approve an application if the installation were reasonably possible and the apartment owner agreed in writing to:
(a) Comply with the association’s reasonable architectural standards for the installation;
(b) Engage an electrical contractor familiar with the standards to install it;
(c) Provide, within14 days after an approval, a certificate of insurance naming the association as an additional insured on the apartment owner’s policy for any claim related to the installation, maintenance, or use of the station, or, if the charging station is located in a common area, reimbursement to the association for the actual cost of any increased premium attributable to the station, which would have to be provided with 14 days of receiving an invoice for that from the association;
(d) Register the electric vehicle charging station with the association within 30 days after installation;
(e) Pay for the electricity associated with the separately metered electric vehicle charging station; and;
(f) Comply with the other requirements of the bill.
The owner would have to obtain any permit or approval required by the local government for a station, and comply with all relevant codes and safety standards. A station would have to meet all applicable health and safety standards and any national, state, or local requirements.

If installation of an electric vehicle charging station in a designated parking space were impossible or unreasonably expensive, an association could authorize the installation of an electric vehicle charging station for the exclusive use of an apartment owner in a common area.. In such cases, the association could enter into a license agreement with the owner for the use of the space; the owner would still have to comply with the requirements of the bill.

Unless a written contract set other terms, an apartment owner would be responsible for the costs of installing a station. It would be the owner’s property, and if it was removable, the owner could take it or sell it to the buyer of the apartment or to the association if either decided to purchase it. An owner would be required to inform any prospective buyers of the existence of a station, the related responsibilities, and whether the owner planned to remove it . The owner and each successive owner would be responsible for:
(a) Costs for the maintenance, repair, and replacement of the station;
(b) Costs for damage to it, a common area, or limited common area resulting from its installation, maintenance, repair, removal, or replacement;
(c) The cost of electricity associated with it;
|(d) Obtaining and maintaining an insurance policy that meets the bill’s requirements;
(f) Removing the station if that were reasonably necessary for the repair, maintenance, or replacement of the common area or limited common area; and,
(e) Any costs for a removal of the station and the restoration of the common area or limited common area after the removal.

An association might install a charging station in the common areas for the use of all apartment owners and, in that case, the association would have to develop appropriate terms of its use.  An association would be authorized to create a new parking space to facilitate the installation of a station. If it reasonably determined that the cumulative use of electricity in the community attributable to the installation and use of  charging stations required the installation of additional infrastructure to provide a sufficient supply of electricity, it could assess the cost of the improvements against each apartment owner that had, or would, install a charging station.

An association that willfully violated the bill’s requirements would be liable to the apartment owner for actual damages, subject to a civil penalty of up to $1,000 to the owner, and responsible for reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs In any action in which an apartment owner requesting to have a station installed and seeking to enforce compliance with the bill prevailed.

The bill would create identical provisions for the installation of chargers in a condominium unit or common space by the owner of a unit , and for the installation of chargers in a lot or designated parking space by the owners of residences in developments with home owners’ associations.

HB1768 – 2022

HB1768 – Expanding the definition of the conservation projects that the Department of Enterprise Services and school districts are to implement (if they’re cost effective) to include projects reducing energy demand or greenhouse gas emissions.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Duerr (D; 1st District; Bothell.) (Co-Sponsor Representative Fitzgibbon – D)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology February 17th. Passed out of committee September 24th, referred to Rules; passed by the Senate March 3rd.
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 & Energy January 13th; substitute adopted January 20th. Passed by the House February 10th.

Summary –
Substitute –
The substitute makes the same changes in definitions for the program that authorizes municipalities to negotiate performance-based energy contracts for conservation in their buildings. There’s a staff summary of these and other small changes at the beginning of the substitute.

Original bill –
The bill would expand the definition of the conservation projects that the Department of Enterprise Services and school districts are required to implement, if they’re cost effective. It currently includes projects reducing energy consumption or energy costs, and projects increasing efficiency. The bill would include projects reducing energy demand or reducing greenhouse gas emissions through distributed energy resources, such as energy storage, demand response, electric vehicles, and grid-interactive efficient buildings.

HB1753

HB1753 – Creates requirements for consultation with tribes on expenditures from the climate commitment act.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Lekanoff (D; 40th District; parts of Whatcom, Skagit and San Juan counties.) (Co-Sponsor Representative Fitzgibbon -D) (By request of the Governor.)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology February 16th, and passed out of committee the 22nd. Referred to Ways & Means; had a hearing there February 26th, passed out of committee and referred to Rules the 28th. Passed by the Senate March 4th.
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 & Energy January 13th; replaced by a substitute making a few small changes and passed out of committee January 27th. Referred to Appropriations; had a hearing there on February 4th; passed out of committee February 5th. Referred to Rules; amended on the floor by the prime sponsor, creating a capacity development grant program to support tribal participation and making other changes in the process which are summarized by staff at the end of the striker.  Passed by the House.

Summary –
The bill would require State agencies that allocate funding or administer grants using revenue from the Climate Commitment Act (aka the cap and invest bill) to consult in a new process with any affected tribe on all funding decisions and programs that might impact tribal resources, including cultural resources, fisheries, archaeological or sacred sites, and other rights and interests in lands reserved or protected by federal treaty, statute, or executive order. (It covers the use of revenue from the climate investment account, the climate commitment account, and the natural climate solutions account, and the requirements of the bill would also apply to local governments’ projects and programs receiving funding from those.)

Applicants for funding would be required to engage in a preapplication process with any tribes within a project area at the earliest possible date. That would include providing a notice to the Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation and any affected tribes including the detailed scope of the project and its location, preliminary application details available to Federal, State, or local governmental jurisdictions, and all publicly available materials, including public funding sources. An applicant would also be required to offer to discuss the project and its potential impacts with them. (The notification and offer to initiate discussion, or the reason why a discussion has not occurred, would have to be documented with a funding application when it was filed, and a copy of the application would have to be delivered to the Department and to the affected tribes.) If any funding decision, program, project, or activity that impacted lands or fisheries within which a tribe possesses reserved rights were funded from the accounts without such a consultation, an affected tribe could request that all further action on it cease until meaningful consultation had been completed.

Any affected tribe could request a formal review of a completed consultation by submitting a request to the Governor’s Office of Indian Affairs and notifying the agencies involved and the Department. The agencies and each tribe would be required to meet separately to initiate a discussion within twenty days of the request, unless the affected tribes agreed to conduct a joint consultation with the state. After the formal review, an affected tribe or an state agency could request that the Governor and an elected tribal leader or leaders meet to formally consider recommendations from the parties. After that, the Governor or an elected tribal leader could call for the state and tribe or tribes to enter into formal mediation, conducted as a government-to-government proceeding, with each government retaining their right to a final decision that met their separate obligations and interests. Mediators would be jointly selected by the parties, and any agreement between the governor and a tribal leader or leaders resulting from the mediation would  be binding. Any party could still initiate further steps, including legal review, to resolve a continuing disagreement.  (During these steps, agencies would not be allowed to approve or release funding, or make other formal decisions to advance a project, including permitting, except when they were legally required to.)

The bill would require the Office of Indian Affairs to coordinate with the Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation and tribes in developing a periodically updated consultation process, including best practices for early, meaningful, and effective consultation, early notification and engagement by applicants and tribes as part of the preapplication process, and protocols for communication and collaboration with tribes. The Office would provide training and other technical assistance to agencies (and to local governments that requested it) as they implemented the required consultation.

SB5619

SB5619 – Develops a plan to conserve and restore at least 10,000 acres of kelp forests and eelgrass meadows by 2040.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Lovelett (D; 40th District; Anacortes)
Current status – Senate concurred in the House amendments.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1661 is a companion bill in the House.

Comments –
The findings say:
These marine forests and meadows play an important role in climate mitigation and adaptation by sequestering carbon and relieving ocean acidification. Marine vegetation can sequester up to times more carbon than terrestrial forests, and therefore represent a critical tool in the fight against climate change.
There’s research on using kelp growing on open ocean platforms, where the biomass falls into regions where there’s so little biological activity that it doesn’t break down and the carbon captured in its growth stays sequestered. I don’t know how much carbon from our local kelp forests stays sequestered for long. How well local eel grass meadows sequester carbon is unclear.


In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks January 20th; replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee January 27th. The substitute, which matches the one for HB1661, would focus the Conservation Plan on native species; have it address current conservation efforts; and identify research needed on native seaweed aquaculture. It specifies consultation and adds reporting requirements. Referred to Ways and Means. Had a hearing there February 5th. Amended and passed out of committee February 7th. (The amendment has DNR map both native and non-native eelgrass and kelp throughout the Sound and along the coast and allows it to use that mapping  in establishing the health and conservation plan.)  Referred to Rules; passed the Senate unanimously February 10th.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture & Natural Resources February 18th; passed out of committee February 23rd. Referred to Appropriations. Amended to make it null and void if funding isn’t appropriated for it, and passed out of committee February 28th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House March 2nd.

Summary –
Original bill –
The bill would require the Department of Natural Resources to work with partners to establish a kelp forest and eelgrass meadow health and conservation plan that tries (subject to available funding) to conserve and restore at least 10,000 acres of kelp forests and eelgrass meadows by 2040.

They would develop a framework to identify and prioritize kelp forest areas in greatest need of conservation or restoration, mapping areas throughout Puget Sound and along the coast where they were historically present, identifying priority locations for restoration that are at highest risk of permanent loss, or that contribute significant environmental, economic, and cultural benefits to tribal nations and local communities; locations where opportunities for partnership and collaboration exist, and locations where restoration would most benefit nearshore ecosystem function including salmon recovery, water quality, and other ecosystem benefits. They would identify potential stressors impacting the health and vitality of forests and meadows in prioritized areas in order to specifically address them in conservation and restoration efforts.

The department would collaborate with impacted tribal nations, and other local and regional partners, to address conservation and restoration needs in the priority areas and the appropriate tools and partnerships to address them. In developing coordinated actions and success measures, it would assess and inventory existing tools for conserving and restoring these ecosystems and reducing stressors related to their decline; identify new or amended tools that would support the goals of the plan; and identify success measures to track progress toward them.

The department would submit a report to the Office of Financial Management and the appropriate committees of the Legislature by December 1, 2022, including a map and justification of identified priority areas, an approach to monitoring the areas that are meeting the criteria for conservation or restoration established in the plan, and activities to be undertaken consistent with the plan. A final version of the plan would have to be submitted to OFM and these committees by December 1, 2023.

The department would continue to monitor kelp forests and eelgrass meadows to inform adaptive management of the plan and coordinated partner actions, and submit a report every two years including an updated map of distributions and trends; a summary of success measures and findings, including relevant information from the prioritization process; an updated list summarizing potential stressors, prioritized areas, and corresponding coordinated actions and success measures; an update on the number of acres of kelp forests and eelgrass meadows conserved by region, including restoration or loss in priority areas; an update on consultation with impacted tribal nations and local communities; any barriers to plan implementation; and legislative or administrative recommendations to address those barriers.

HB1723

HB1723 – Increasing the accessibility and affordability of telecommunications services, devices, and training through reduced rates, grants, and planning programs.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Gregerson (D; 33rd District; South King County) (Co-Sponsors Representative Taylor & Ryu – Ds)
Current status – House concurred in the Senate changes.
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 Community & Economic Development January 11th; replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee January 18th. The substitute no longer requires utilities to provide services to low-income persons at a reduced rate determined by the UTC; adds eight more types of anchor institutions, adds three sorts of people to the definition of underserved populations, and adds pre-kindergarten students to those that must be considered when awarding grants. Had a hearing in Appropriations January 27th. Replaced by a second substitute making the bill null and void if specific funding for weren’t appropriated and passed out of committee February 1st. Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor and passed by the House February 12th. (The floor amendments allowed the program to assist low-income people with the cost of services through other means in addition to rate reductions; would have telecommunications providers determine rates for eligible services rather than the UTC; would no longer allow the UTC to exclude a provider from the program because of excessive charges or poor customer service; and would make the program subject to the availability of amounts appropriated for it.)

In the Senate – Passed
Scheduled but not heard in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology February 23rd. Replaced by a striker and passed out of committee February 24th. (The striker no longer requires telecommunications providers providing eligible voice and broadband, when enrolling new customers to inform new customers of these and other reduced rate options, and no longer requires them to submit specified information toverifying the eligibility of low-income customers. It no longer requires DSHS to verify low income eligibility or to reimburse providers for the difference between the reduced rates and regular prices, and it makes a couple of other small changes.) Referred to Ways and Means; had a hearing there February 26th. Replaced by a striker which eliminates the proposed Anchor Institution Digital Equity Program and the proposed Washington Broadband Assistance Program, requiring the Statewide Broadband Office to to develop and report on a state digital equity plan in consultation with the Digital Equity Forum, the UTC, and DSHS instead. Passed by the Senate March 4th.

Summary –
The bill would establish a Digital Equity Forum to develop recommendations to advance digital connectivity in the state and advise the State Broadband Office, and would create three new digital equity programs.

It would create a broadband assistance program, administered by the Department of Social and Health Services, to provide low-income persons with reduced rates for eligible voice and broadband services. The Utilities and Transportation Commission would determine eligible services and the amount of assistance, considering the number of customers expected to participate, the price of services, other available assistance programs, and other relevant facts. It would adopt guidelines to reduce barriers to enrollment in the program, which might include allowing providers with low-income internet offerings to automatically enroll customers who had already demonstrated eligibility through initial enrollment in another low-income internet offering without additional verification. Telecommunications providers would be required to provide those services to low-income persons at the reduced rate determined by the Commission, to inform customers that they may be eligible for reduced rates, and to provide information to the department for verifying the eligibility of those customers. The Department would reimburse companies for the discounts. (It would not be allowed to limit these customers to one line.) It would consult with the Office of Equity about methods for administering the program to reduce barriers to participation and a plan for outreach, eligibility determination assistance, and enrollment navigation assistance for populations that would be challenged to participate.

If funding were provided, the bill would establish a Digital Equity Forum to develop recommendations to advance digital connectivity in the state and advise the Broadband Office on the digital equity opportunity and digital equity planning grant programs. The directors of the Office and the Washington State Office of Equity would appoint members they agreed on to the Forum, prioritizing representatives from tribes; state agencies involved in digital equity; and underserved and unserved communities. Two State Representatives and two Senators, one from each party, would also be appointed as members by the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate.

The Statewide Broadband Office would create and manage an anchor institution digital equity program providing rates discounted by at least 50% for broadband services and 25% for basic telecommunications services to public schools, housing authorities, libraries, medical and health care providers, community colleges and other higher education institutions, and other nonprofit or governmental community support organizations. It could provide partial or full grants for the costs for building, rehabilitating, or maintaining telecommunications infrastructure, prioritizing applications by the extent to which they help expand access to state-of-the-art technologies for rural, inner city, low-income, and disabled residents, and the extent to which any broadband service provided is consistent with the office’s current established goals. (The bill would also slightly expand the purposes of the Statewide Broadband Office to include increasing the adoption of broadband as well as its accessibility, to cover underserved as well as unserved communities, and to allow it to work with public housing agencies. It would allow it to assist applicants for the assistance programs it creates in seeking grants for broadband services, and would have it coordinate an outreach effort providing information about available broadband assistance programs to hard-to-reach and low-income communities, or to contract for that outreach.)

If funding were provided, the bill would have the Department of Commerce establish a digital equity planning grant program for local governments, institutions of higher education, workforce development councils, or other entities to development digital equity plans for discrete regions of the state. Priority would be given to applications accompanied by express support from community or neighborhood-based nonprofit organizations, public development authorities, federally recognized Indian tribes in the state, or other community partners and partners using community-based participatory action research methods as a part of the proposed plan. The Digital Equity Forum would review them and provide input to the department about prioritizing awards. The Department would be required to evaluate and rank applications using objective criteria such as the number of underserved populations served and subjective criteria such as the degree of support and engagement evidenced by the community who will be served; to consider the input provided by the forum; and to consider the extent to which the mix of grants awarded would increase the number of K-12 students gaining access to greater levels of digital inclusion.

The bill would focus the the Department of Commerce’s current community technology opportunity program on advancing broadband adoption, digital equity and inclusion. It would have the Digital Equity Forum review applications for the program’s grants and provide input on prioritizing awards, as well as requiring Commerce to consider that input and the extent to which the mix of awards would increase the number of K-12 students gaining access to greater levels of digital inclusion. It would remove the requirement for matching funds for program grants, and would have the Department provide additional support for evaluating the impact and efficacy of activities supported by the grants; and for developing, cataloging, disseminating, and promoting the exchange of best practices to achieve digital equity. It would explicitly have the Department collaborate with broadband stakeholders in implementing the program, including broadband action teams across the state.

SB5616

SB5616 – Allows using the energy efficiency account permanently for loans, loan guarantees, and grants that reduce greenhouse gas emissions for emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Rolfes (D; 23rd District; Kitsap County) (By request of the Office of Financial Management)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Appropriations February 22nd. Passed out of committee February 24th, and referred to Rules. Passed by the House March 3rd.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in Ways & Means January 17th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee January 31st. Referred to Transportation and had a hearing there February 3rd. Replaced by a second substitute making a couple of housekeeping changes and passed out of committee February 7th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate unanimously February 11th.

Summary –

Substitute –
The substitute would make the change allowing the energy efficiency account to be used for projects reducing EITE emissions permanent.

Original bill –
During the next biennium, the bill would allow money in the energy efficiency account to be appropriated and spent on loans, loan guarantees, and grants for projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions for emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries. (It would also create a clean energy transition workforce account to support workers affected by the state’s transition away from fossil fuels to a clean energy economy, and a forest resiliency account dedicated to spending on forest health, carbon sequestration, and any other activities that help protect Washington forests.)

HB1673

HB1673 –Authorizes loans and grants for emergency public works broadband projects, and no longer requires UTC assessments of applications’ technical feasibility.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Ryu (D; 32nd District; Shoreline) (Co-Sponsors Representatives Donaghy -D, Leavitt -D, and Boehnke -R) (By request of the Public Works Board)
Current status – Cancelled hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology on February 17th. Amended to prioritize funding projects that replace existing providers’ damaged infrastructure, specifying that the Board “shall not provide funds to a new provider to overbuild the existing provider,” and passed out of committee February 22nd. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate March 4th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5580 is a companion bill in the Senate.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Community and Economic Development January 11th; replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee January 14th. (There’s a staff summary of the substitute’s changes in a memo.) Had a hearing in the Committee on the Capital Budget February 1st, and passed out of committee February 4th. Referred to Rules February 7th. Amended on the floor to allow an existing provider to object to a project if the service they provide or commit to providing meets the State’s 2024 speed standards of 25Mb/sec download and 3Mb/sec upload, rather than the 2028 goals which increase to at least 150Mb/sec in both directions. Passed by the House unanimously February 10th.

Summary –
The bill would authorize the board to make low-interest or interest-free loans or grants for emergency public works broadband projects, including the construction, repair, reconstruction, replacement, rehabilitation, or improvement to critical broadband infrastructure damaged by unforeseen events.

It would no longer require the board to consult with the Utilities and Transportation Commission to assessments of the technical feasibility of applications and to consider those as part of its evaluations of them.

It would also make financial and commercial information and records supplied by businesses or individuals in applying for loans or program services exempt from disclosure under the public records act, and make very minor changes in the processes for applications and for objections by current providers.

SB5590

SB5590 – Eliminates the expiration date for the Marine Advisory Council, which works on addressing the impacts of ocean acidification.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Wagoner (R; 39th District; parts of Skagit, Snohomish and King Counties)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 24th, and passed out of committee. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House March 4th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in Environment, Energy & Technology January 19th; amended to keep an expiration date, but extend it to 2032, and passed out of committee January 27th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate February 14th.

Comments –
The original section of the law establishing the Council says that it’s to deliver recommendations to the Governor and the Legislature, but it doesn’t actually ever specify what those are supposed to be about…

Summary –
Original bill –
The bill would eliminate the expiration date for the Marine Advisory Council, which works on addressing the impacts of ocean acidification. It’s currently June 30th, 2022.

The Council’s composed of 23 voting members representing State and tribal government, State agencies, and a range of stakeholders, with invited participation as non-voting members by representatives of NOAA and academic institutions conducting scientific research on ocean acidification. It’s to focus in a sustained and coordinated way on increasing the state’s ability to address impacts of ocean acidification; to advise and work with the University of Washington and others to conduct ongoing technical analysis on accidification’s effects and sources; and to deliver recommendations to the Governor and appropriate committees in the Legislature [presumably about ways to address those impacts], identifying actions necessary to implement them, and   taking the differences between in-state and out-of-state impacts and sources into consideration.

The Council’s also to seek public and private funding for resources needed for ongoing technical analysis to support its recommendations; and to help conduct public education about ocean acidification’s impacts,  contributions to those, and implementation strategies “to support the actions adopted by the Legislature”.

It’s to meet at least twice a year, and accept public comment on agenda items and other matters relating to the protection and conservation of the state’s ocean resources.

HB1663

HB1663 – Reducing methane emissions from landfills.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Duerr (D; 1st District; Bothell) (Co-sponsor Representative Fitzgibbon -D)
Current status – House concurred in the Senate amendments March 9th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
I’ve done my best to summarize this bill, but I wouldn’t swear I’ve got it right…

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology February 16th, replaced by a striker making minor changes that are summarized at the end of it and passed out of committee February 23rd. Referred to Ways and Means, and had a hearing there February 26th. Amended to make a couple of minor changes and passed out of committee February 28th. Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor to allow local governments to receive funding from the Climate Commitment Act for installing gas collection devices and gas control systems; to remove the requirement for methane hot spot monitoring and reporting; and to include installation of an energy recovery device as qualifying for the up to two year extension on the deadline for compliance. Passed by the Senate March 4th.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in Environment & Energy; replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee January 20th. (The substitute exempts limited purpose landfills; there’s a staff summary of the other minor changes in it.) Referred to Appropriations, and had a hearing there February 4th. Replaced by a 2nd substitute adding a 3% limit on methane leak rates for gas collection and control system routing gas to energy recovery or treatment systems, and changing the frequency of source testing for gas control devices. Passed out of committee February 5th, and referred to Rules. Amended on the floor, to change the frequency of required source testing in municipal landfills from three years to five years, unless they’re non-compliant, in which case they must be tested annually until they comply two years in a row. Passed by the House February 11th.

Summary –
The bill applies to municipal solid waste landfills and to limited purpose landfills that received waste after January 1st 1997, and receive or have received nothing but solid waste that isn’t inert or hazardous. If one contains less than 450,000 tons of waste, its owner or operator has to do an annual waste in place report. Landfills with more waste have to include a calculation of their gas heat input capacity in their report. (That’s the gross heating value of the methane emissions, which can be calculated in various ways.) If that’s more than 300,000 btus/hour recovered and there’s any measured concentration of methane over 200 parts/million by volume from the surface of one of these larger active, inactive, or closed landfills over four consecutive quarterly readings, they have to install a gas collection and control system, conduct instantaneous and integrated surface monitoring of the landfill surface, monitor the gas control system, and monitor each individual wellhead to determine the gauge pressure.

Collection and control systems have to handle the expected gas flow rate from the entire area of the landfill, be designed and operated so that there is no gas leak that exceeds 500 parts/million by volume at any component under pressure, and collect gas at a rate that keeps the instantaneous monitoring of surface methane (other than nonrepeatable, momentary readings) below 500 parts/million by volume ; or maintains an average methane concentration determined by integrated surface emissions monitoring below 25 parts/million by volume. (The requirements don’t apply to the working face of the landfill or areas where the cover’s been removed to work on systems or for law enforcement excavations.

Ecology or the local authority would have to allow the capping or removal of the gas collection and control system at a closed municipal solid waste landfill or limited purpose landfill, if the system had been in operation for at least 15 years, or the owner or operator demonstrated  that system would be unable to operate for that long due to declining methane rates; the surface methane concentration measurements were below the act’s limits; and they submitted an equipment removal report.

The bill would exempt these landfill emissions from the cap and invest program, but it would expand the law that allows Ecology to impose civil penalties of up to $10,000 a day for violations of the Clean Air Act to include violations of these landfill emissions regulations, of  the Clean Fuels Act, and of the rules governing burning permits (RCW 76.04.205). (I  don’t know why it includes this last item, since that RCW already authorizes these penalties.)

Ecology would develop rules for implementing the bill, and for the monitoring procedures; it could collect fees to cover its costs. Owners or operators of these landfills would  have to maintain records on monitoring, testing, landfill operations, and the operation of any gas control or collection device or system. They would have to notify Ecology if the landfill closes, and if they remove or shut down a gas control system. They could request alternatives to the requirements, which Ecology could evaluate on the basis of factors including their compliance history; documentation containing the landfill gas flow rate and measured methane concentrations for individual gas collection wells or components; permits; component testing and surface monitoring results; gas collection and control system operation, maintenance, and inspection records; and historical meteorological data.

HB1644

HB1644 – Allows using the transportation vehicle fund to plan for clean student transportation vehicles, and to develop charging and fueling infrastructure for them.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Senn (D; 41st District; Mercer Island) (Co-sponsor Rep. Ybarra (R; 13th District; Quincy)
Current status – House concurred in the Senate amendments.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in Appropriations January 24th; replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee January 27th. Referred to Rules; passed the House 94 to 2 on February 9th.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Early Learning & K-12 Education February 18th; passed out of committee February 23rd. Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor to include converting or repowering existing fossil fuel pupil transportation vehicles to electric or zero-emission ones, and passed by the Senate March 2nd.

Summary –
The bill specifies that the transportation vehicle fund can also be used to complete a feasibility plan to transition from gas or diesel student transportation vehicles to electric or alternative fuel ones; and for the purchase, installation, and repair of charging and fueling stations for those, as well as other costs necessary for station installation. The amendment in Appropriations simply replaced “alternative fuel vehicles and fueling stations” with “zero emission vehicles and fueling stations.”

SB5528

SB5528 – Allows a regional transit authority to create enhanced service zones with improved service from rail or high capacity systems, to be approved by residents of the zone and financed by them.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Pedersen (D; 43rd District; Seattle); Co-Sponsor Rep. Liias (D; 21st District; Everett)
Current status – Senate concurred in the House amendments.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2062 is a companion bill in the House.

Comments –
It’s hard to see how the operators of commercial parking facilities without attendants are supposed to be able to keep track of how many of the vehicles that used them were exempt from a commercial parking tax.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Transportation February 24th; passed out of committee the 28th. Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor to prevent a regional transit authority from proceeding with improvements financed by an enhanced service zone if they will delay the estimated completion date of high capacity improvements in an existing voter-approved regional transit plan by more than six months rather than preventing this if it would create a material and unreasonable delay. Passed by the House March 3rd.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Transportation  January 13th; replaced by a substitute making changes that are summarized by staff at the beginning of it, and passed out of committee February 7th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate February 11th.

Summary –
The bill would authorize regional transit authorities to create enhanced zones to improve rail or high capacity service in ways that directly benefited residents of the zone. A zone would have to be recommended to the authority by an advisory committee whose members represented the proposed zone, and then authorized in a special election by the voters in the zone. The improvements would be financed by increasing the maximum rate of the local special motor vehicle excise tax available to regional transit authorities in counties with a population over 1.5 million from .85% to 1.5% within the enhanced zone, and/or through a local commercial parking tax.

The parking tax could be imposed as a tax on commercial parking businesses in the zone, based on the number of stalls or gross proceeds, or as a tax “for the act or privilege of parking a motor vehicle in a facility operated by a commercial parking business.” In that case, it would still be collected and paid by operator of the facility, but it might be a fee per vehicle or proportional to the charge for parking, and might vary according to a number of reasonable factors including the facility’s location, the time of day, or the duration of the parking. It would also apply to leased spaces as well as temporary parking, unless those were for buildings’ residents. Carpools, vehicles with a disabled parking placard, and government vehicles would be exempt.

An enhanced service zone would have to be within the transit authority’s boundaries and include at least all of a city or town within them; it could also include one or more entire adjacent cities or towns and adjacent unincorporated areas. There might also be multiple enhanced service zones encompassing the same city or town, or adjacent unincorporated area.

HB1623

HB1623 – Requires the next annual meeting of Commerce, the UTC, electric utilities, and other stakeholders to specifically address the extent to which we’re at risk of rolling blackouts and power supply inadequacy events.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Mosbrucker (R; 14th District; Klickitat County) (Co-sponsor Rep. Fitzgibbon – D)
Current status – Vetoed by the Governor.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy January 11th; replaced by a substitute eliminating language in the findings stressing risks and adding language about the benefits of transitioning off fossil fuels and steps that are reducing risks, and passed out of committee January 14th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House February 10th.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology February 16th, and passed out of committee the 22nd. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate March 1st.

Summary –
RCW 19.280.065 requires the Department of Commerce and the UTC to convene a meeting with utilities and other stakeholders at least once a year to discuss the current, short-term, and long-term adequacy of energy resources to serve the state’s electric needs, and address specific steps the utilities can take to coordinate planning. The convenors provide a summary of each meeting, and any recommended actions, to the Governor and the Legislature.

This bill would require the meeting in 2022 to address the extent to which we’re at risk of rolling blackouts and power supply inadequacy events; survey stakeholders for recommendations on policy options to prevent severe blackouts; focus discussion on the extent to which an aggressive timeline for building and transportation system electrification may require new state policies for resource adequacy; and seek to identify regulatory and statutory incentives to enhance and ensure resource adequacy and reliability during a clean energy transition. (It would also make the requirement for annual meetings expire January 1, 2030 rather than January 1, 2025.)

HB1619 – 2022

HB1619 – Updates some State appliance efficiency standards and adds others.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Fitzgibbon (D; 34th District; Vashon Island, Southwest Seattle) Co-Sponsor Representative Hackney (D; 11th District; South Seattle, Tukwila)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology February 16th, and passed out of committee the 22nd. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate March 1st.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House  –
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy January 11th; substitute passed out of committee January 14th. (The substitute exempts kitchen range hoods, removes cables with plugs for regular household 15 and 20 amp circuits from the efficiency requirements, and removes the original bill’s exemption for publicly available chargers.) Referred to Rules, amended by the prime sponsor on the floor and passed by the House February 10th. ( The floor amendment exempts EV charging cords that plug into standard household 120 V outlets from the requirements, and allows Commerce to delay or suspend requirements in the public interest.)

Summary –
Original bill –
The bill would remove the State’s current efficiency requirements for residential pool pumps and uninterruptible power supplies. It would require portable air purifiers, commercial ovens, and electrical vehicle supply equipment to meet the current Energy Star standards as of January 1, 2024. It would expand the definition of residential ventilating fans to include fans supplying inside air as well as exhaust fans, and have them reach the most recent Energy Star standard by January 1, 2024. It would update the requirements for portable electric spas by reference to the recent update of California’s standard, and change the requirement for commercial hot food holding cabinets from 40 watts/cubic foot to the Energy Star standard (version 2.0).

HB1389

HB1389 – More detailed regulations and lower insurance requirements for peer-to-peer car sharing businesses.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Corry (R; 14th District; Yakima, Klickitat and Skamania County) (Co-Sponsor Eslick – R)
Current status – House concurred in the Senate amendments.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House 2021 –
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Consumer Protection & Business February 3rd. Replaced by a substitute making minor changes, which are summarized by staff at its beginning, and passed out of committee January 27th.

In the House 2022 – Passed
Reintroduced; had a hearing in Consumer Protection & Business January 13th. Replaced by a substitute which rephrases the point that a peer-to-peer car sharing program does not have to have insurance to cover its assumption of a vehicle owner’s liability for bodily injury or property damage to third parties or uninsured and underinsured motorist or personal injury protection losses while the owner’s car is being shared and makes a few other small changes. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House 96-2 on February 12th.

In the Senate 2022 – Passed
Passed out of Senate Transportation February 17th. Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Business, Financial Services & Trade February 22nd; passed out of committee the 23rd. Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor to make the require peer-to- peer car sharing programs to be certain that shared cars have at least twice the minimum  insurance required by state law, and passed by the Senate March 2nd.

Summary –
The bill is nearly identical to Representative Corry’s HB2918, which I summarized last year. A striker replaced HB2733 original language with HB2918’s, and it then passed the House nearly unanimously in 2020, but died in committee in the Senate. (This updated version only adds a few lines specifying that various provisions about rental cars don’t apply to peer to peer car sharing.) The bill deletes all of another much simpler set of regulations currently governing this area, Chapter 48.175 RCW., replacing those with finer grained and more specific requirements.

The current law requires companies to provide at least three times the liability coverage required for personal vehicles. This bill only requires them to provide the liability minimums for private vehicles, which are $25,000 for the injury or death of another person; 50,000 for the injury or death of two or more people, and $10,000 for damage to another person’s property. The current law also requires the company to provide collision or comprehensive coverage for at least the actual cash value of the vehicle, if it provides those. (I don’t think the bill’s language would requires a company to, though I’m not sure.)

HB1280

HB1280 – Includes the cost of greenhouse gas emissions and the consideration of all-electric systems in the analysis of buildings the State’s constructing or leasing.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Ramel (D; 40th District; Bellingham) (Co-sponsor Duerr – D)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology February 1st, and passed out of committee the 23rd. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate March 1st.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House 2022 –
Reintroduced in Rules January 10th, passed by the House January 21st.

In the Senate 2022 –

In the House 2021 – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy January 29th. Passed out of committee February 4th. Referred to the House Committee on the Budget, had a hearing there February 17th, and was passed out February 19th. Referred to Rules. Passed by the House March 9th.

In the Senate 2021 – Died; returned to the House in 2022
Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology; Had a hearing March 18th and passed out of committee March 23rd. Referred to Rules; did not reach the floor.

 

Comments –
The bill doesn’t specify how “the costs associated with greenhouse gas emissions from energy consumption” are to be estimated, and whether that’s to include a social cost of carbon or not.

Summary –
The State currently includes energy costs in the life-cycle analysis it requires in considering the costs of buildings over 25,000 sq. ft. and critical facilities that it’s constructing or leasing. It also requires comparing the energy costs of at least three energy systems when designing or renovating one of these buildings; at least one of the potential systems has to “include renewable energy systems”, and at least one of them has to comply with the sustainability design guidelines for a LEED silver rating.

The bill requires considering at least one all-electric system rather that at least one complying with the LEED guidelines, and it requires “including the costs associated with greenhouse gas emissions from energy consumption” in the cost analysis.

SB5085

SB5085 – Sets the additional alternative fuel vehicle registration fee for electric motorcycles at $30 a year.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Rolfes (D; 23rd District; Bainbridge Island)
Current status – Referred to House Transportation. Had a hearing and passed out of committee February 28th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House March 8th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate 2022 – Passed
Reintroduced in Transportation; amended to reduce the fee for motorcycle registrations starting in November 2022 rather than 2021, and passed out of committee February 14th. Referred to Ways and Means, and passed out of committee February 22nd. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate February 25th.

In the Senate 2021 – Passed
Referred to the Senate Committee on Transportation; had a hearing on February 18th. Replaced by a substitute and voted out of committee February 22nd; referred to Rules. Passed by the Senate March 8th.
In the House 2021 – Died in committee.
Referred to the House Committee on Transportation. Had a hearing March 15th. Died in committee. Still in committee at cutoff; Returned to Senate Rules.

Summary –
I regret to say my original summary of the bill misread a line at the end that would have removed the annual $75 transportation electrification fee currently paid by plug-in vehicles, other alternative fuel vehicles and hybrids. (However, the substitute dropped that, so what the bill would do now is all I thought it did originally – set the additional alternative fuel vehicle registration fee for electric motorcycles at $30 a year.)

SB5042

SB5042 – Delays vesting of development rights associated with actions under the Growth Management Act until sixty days after final planning decisions are made.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Salomon (D; 32nd District; Shoreline) (Co-Sponsor Billig – D)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 17th. Passed out of committee February 22nd; referred to Rules, and passed by the House March 3rd.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate 2021 –
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Housing and Local Government January 12th; passed out of committee January 28th. Referred to Rules. Was still in the house of origin at cutoff.

In the Senate 2022 – Passed
Reintroduced in Senate Rules for the 2022 session; passed by the Senate January 26th.

In the House 2022 –
Referred to Environment and Energy.

Summary –
The bill sets the “initial effective date” of various planning changes covered by the Growth Management Act at sixty days after the publication of a notice of adoption for the action (or sixty days after the issuance of the Growth Management Hearing Board’s final notice, if there’s a review.) The bill’s findings say that the current legal interpretation of the GMA sets this effective date (and the vesting of development rights which occurs then) earlier in the process, and allows those rights to vest before the validity of plans and regulations can actually be determined.

The bill applies to actions that expand an urban growth area; remove the designation of agricultural, forest, or mineral resource lands; create or expand a limited area of more intensive rural development; establish a new fully contained community; or create or expand a master planned resort.