Category Archives: Hearing Opposite House 2023

HB1391

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HB1392

HB1392 – Broadening access to the information and tools needed to repair digital electronic equipment.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Gregerson (D; 33rd District; SeaTac) (Co-Sponsors Ryu – D; Kretz and Dent – Rs)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology March 22nd.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5464 is a companion bill in the Senate.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Consumer Protection & Business February 1st. Replaced by a substitute, amended, and passed out of committee February 8th. Referred to Appropriations, and had a hearing there February 20th. Amended to require repair providers to make various information about security and privacy available to customers and passed out of committee February 23rd. Referred to Rules, amended to specify that the requirements don’t apply to vehicles, vehicle equipment or charging infrastructure, and passed by the House March 4th.

Substitute –
There’s a staff summary of the changes in the substitute, which reduced the requirements significantly, at the beginning of it. (The amendment just exempted medical devices explicitly.)

Summary –
The bill says it would require manufacturers of digital electronic equipment that is sold or used in the state, (and parts for it) to make any parts, tools, and documentation required for the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of those available to any independent repair provider or owner, on fair and reasonable terms. (They could be available directly from the manufacturer or through an authorized repair provider.)  (However, a later section seems to limit this requirement to what’s available to authorized repair providers.) If equipment contained an electronic security lock or other security-related function, then any special parts, tools, and documentation needed to access and reset those when they were disabled during diagnosis, maintenance, or repair would need to be available.

If manufacturers sold any documentation, parts, or tools to any independent repair provider in a format that was standardized with other original manufacturers, and on terms and conditions more favorable than those under which authorized repair providers obtained the same things, they’d be prohibited from requiring authorized providers to continue purchasing those in a proprietary format, unless that included documentation or functionality that wasn’t available in a standardized format.

Manufacturers wouldn’t be required to sell service parts that were no longer available to authorized repair providers; or to divulge any trade secrets. They wouldn’t have any liability for services performed by independent repair providers, or provide any warranty for those. Stuff for modifying equipment and for working on public safety communications equipment would be excluded. Violations of the requirements would be considered unfair or deceptive acts in trade or commerce and unfair methods of competition for the purpose of applying the consumer protection act; they would only be enforceable by the Attorney General under that act.

SB5309

SB5309 – Eliminates the public utility tax exemption for the instate portion of interstate oil shipments.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Lovelett (D; 40th District; Anacortes) (Co-Sponsor Rolfes – D)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Finance March 14th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate –
Had a hearing in Ways and Means on January 24th, and passed out of committee February 16th. Referred to Rules, replaced by a striker, and passed by the Senate March 2nd.

Senate Striker –
This specified that these shipments don’t qualify for certain public utility tax deductions, provided a method for calculating the proportion of a company’s gross income from shipments that would be subject to the tax, and added some definitions and technical clarifications.

Summary –
The law currently exempts the gross income from certain interstate shipments of petroleum products and crude oil from the state public utility tax. The bill would eliminate that exemption for the in-state portion of those shipments.