Category Archives: House

HB2955

HB2955 – Gives a $30 rebate on the registration fee for hybrid or alternative fuel vehicles that were driven less than 6,000 miles in the previous year.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Shewmake (D; 29th District; Tacoma) (Co-sponsors Paul, Macri, Ramel, Young, and Fitzgibbon)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Transportation.
Next step would be – I’m not sure. This may be NTIB, in which case I guess it could still move this session…
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
Would give a $30 rebate on the annual registration fee for a hybrid or alternative fuel vehicle if it had been driven less than 6,000 miles in the previous year.

HB2957

HB2957 – Regulating indirect sources under the Clean Air Act and reducing building emissions.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Fitzgibbon (D; 34th District; Seattle)
Current status – Introduced in the House Committee on Appropriations March 2nd and scheduled for a hearing and executive session the same afternoon at 1:30 PM. An amended substitute passed out of committee (at 1:50 AM…); referred to Rules.
Next step would be – Action by the Rules Committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –  There’s a staff bill analysis available.

The substitute’s additional definition of “indirect emissions” for the purposes of the act restricts them to emissions from “fuels” ; it also adds what seems like a vague and inadequate definition of “leakage”. It allows the Department of Ecology to get additional data from producers and distributors if that’s needed to calculate the indirect emissions it’s authorized to regulate. It rewrites the section on credits for biofuels to improve the prose, without changing the substance as far as I can see. It now specifies the energy-intensive and trade-exposed facilities that the Department can treat with special consideration, to the extent needed to prevent leakage, by using a list of industry classification codes. (It also specifies that the special consideration does not extend to their products.) The amendment adds an additional preemption,  prohibiting local air authorities, cities and counties from adopting a clean fuels standard or low carbon fuel standard until January 1, 2023, if Ecology adopts a clean fuels standard or low carbon fuel standard by January 1, 2021.

Summary –
The bill responds to the recent Supreme Court decision holding that Ecology didn’t have the statutory authority to regulate fossil fuel production and distribution through the Clean Air Act  because that didn’t authorize it to regulate indirect emissions. The bill revises the definitions of emissions to specify both direct and indirect ones, and explicitly authorizes Ecology and local air authorities to use the Act to regulate the emissions from the production and distribution of any product in the state emitting over 25,000 tonnes a year of greenhouse gases, and of all fossil fuels.

It requires Ecology to adopt a rule, taking effect after October 1, 2021, that specifies emission thresholds for regulated sources. It authorizes Ecology to collect fees to cover the administrative costs of the program, to rely on market-based mechanisms including bankable tradeable credits to achieve emission reductions, and to provide special consideration for energy-intensive and trade-exposed industries, but only to the extent necessary to address leakage. Ecology is to provide biofuels with credits that adjust their obligations to take account of the difference between their lifecycle emissions and those of whatever fossil fuels they’re expected to replace. If it regulates direct or indirect emissions sources other than fossil fuels, it has to provide a mechanism for using credits or offsets from forest carbon sequestration in meeting those obligations.

The bill directs the Utilities and Transportation Commission to allow timely recovery of prudent and reasonable compliance costs by utilities.

It would delay implementing the 2018 residential energy code until  July 1, 2022, if the Legislature provided policies and funding for existing residential retrofit programs that  produced larger greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

It prohibits any local caps, taxes or fees on greenhouse gas emissions, and any local restrictions on natural gas infrastructure in new buildings until 2023.

It would make the new Clean Air Act authority null and void if a more comprehensive  program that put a price on greenhouse gas emissions and was forecast to achieve the State’s targets were enacted.

HB2829

HB2829 – Declaring a climate emergency and authorizing possible actions by the Governor.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Kirby (D; 29th District; Tacoma) (Co-sponsors Tarleton, Riccelli, Pollet, and Macri)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 6th. Failed to make it out of committee by 2020 cutoff; dead bill.
Next step would be –
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill declares a climate emergency and authorizes the Governor to declare an energy emergency, modifying the current legislation for energy emergencies (in RCW 43.21G.040), which is intended to deal with a short term energy supply crisis.

An energy emergency would authorize the Governor to suspend or modify any agency’s rules about its energy consumption, or about the production of energy, and to order any state agency or local government to implement programs about its consumption of energy which have been developed by the governor or the agency – “for the purposes of limiting greenhouse gas emissions and building resiliency to the effects of climate change.” The Governor would also be authorized to issue orders to:
(a) implement programs, controls, standards, and priorities for the production, allocation, and consumption of energy;
(b) suspend and modify any standards or regulations affecting or affected by the use of energy, including air and water pollution rules, and:
(c) establish and implement programs and agreements to coordinate the State’s energy programs and actions with the Federal government’s, other states’, and other localities’.

The bill would exempt these powers from some of the time limits in the current law, but it seems to leave the limits of RCW 43.21G.040(1)(b) in place; those say an energy emergency is limited to 30 days unless the Legislature is in session or the Governor calls it into session within 30 days. It isn’t clear how this provision meshes with the bill’s provision that the Governor would have to announce the intention to declare an emergency by December 1st, specifying the steps he or she intended to take, and would not be able to proceed until after the conclusion of the next Legislative session, to give the Legislature an opportunity to add to, limit, or otherwise amend the proposals.`(I think that means there’s no time limit on the emergency powers unless the Legislature imposes a new one during that session.)

The Governor would have to have any plans for steps affecting the production, allocation, and consumption of energy, or for modifications to the laws in place, reviewed by the joint committee on energy supply and energy conservation. (That’s made up of four senators and four representatives, paired from each party.) However, the governor merely has to “review” any recommendations they may make.

HB2918

HB2918 – Insurance requirements for peer-to-peer car sharing businesses.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Corry (R; 14th District; Yakima, Klickitat and Skamania counties)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Consumer Protection and Business.
Next step would be – A striker for HB2773 replaced the language of that bill with this one’s.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
As I read the bill, the car sharing company is not made liable for damage to the shared car itself; it may provide coverage for that, but is not required to.

(HB2773 is another bill on the subject, dealing with the same issues with some differences in language and detail which may matter to lawyers. ) It’s now been replaced by a striker that substituted the language of this bill for its original text.

Summary –
The bill makes a peer-to-peer car sharing company liable for bodily injury, or property damage to third parties, or uninsured and underinsured motorist or personal injury protection losses during the period when an owner’s car is being used by another driver, and when it’s being delivered to that driver. It’s liable for the amount stated in the car sharing agreement, which must at least satisfy the State’s minimum insurance coverage requirements. However, it’s not liable if the owner makes an intentional or fraudulent material misrepresentation or omission to the company before the car sharing period in which the loss occurred; or is acting in concert with a driver who fails to return the vehicle according to the terms of the agreement. (There’s a provision I don’t understand which says the company is liable for these damages “notwithstanding the definition of car sharing termination time” provided in the bill.)

Companies are required to ensure that there is insurance coverage, at least at the levels the State requires, for the owner and the driver, and that it recognizes that the vehicle will be used in a peer-to-peer sharing program or doesn’t exclude that. (The coverage may be provided by the owner, the driver, the company, or some combination of those. I think that Section 4(7)(b) means that the company is not required to provide any coverage, only to ensure that there is the minimum.) If the company is providing all or part of the required insurance it assumes the primary liability if there’s a dispute about who was in control of the car at the time the loss occurred or it’s failed to provide required information about liability coverage to the driver or driver, but it’s to be indemnified by the owner’s insurance company if it’s determined that the owner was in control of the car at the time of the loss. The car sharing company is also required to provide the minimum coverage if the driver or owner doesn’t have insurance that provides it, and to notify owners with liens on their cars that allowing them to be shared through the program may violate the terms of the lien. If an insurance company chooses to defend or indemnify a claim against an owner or a driver for a loss while a car was being shared, and the company’s policy excluded that coverage, it can seek reimbursement from the car sharing company’s insurer.

Insurance companies may exclude any and all coverage for vehicles used in peer-to-peer sharing programs. Car sharing companies are required to keep records on the times cars were used, the fees paid by drivers, and the revenues received by owners for at least the length of the applicable personal injury statute of limitations.

Car sharing agreements have to inform the owner and the driver that they’re potentially liable for any economic loss that violating the terms and conditions of the agreement causes the company, and that their car insurance policies will not cover those. They have to inform them that the company’s insurance may not cover them if the car is shared past the termination time in the agreement, that owner’s liability insurance may not provide coverage for a shared vehicle, and if there are conditions under which the driver has to have a policy providing primary coverage with certain limits to book a shared vehicle. The agreement also has to provide the daily rate, fees, any applicable insurance or protection package costs that are charged to the owner or the driver, and an emergency telephone number for roadside assistance and other customer service.

Companies can only enter sharing agreements with legally authorized drivers. They’re responsible for any equipment they install in the car, and can’t charge an owner if it’s stolen, unless the owner caused that; if a driver damages or loses their equipment, they can try to recover for that loss. They must verify that there are no outstanding safety recalls on cars registering for the program, and notify owners that if they receive new recalls they’re responsible for taking cars out of the program until the problem’s been fixed.

HB2892

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

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

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

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

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

 

HB2848

HB2848 – Extends the sales and use tax exemption for hog fuel to 2045.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Chapman (D; 24th District; Clallam County) (Co-Sponsors Orcutt, Tharinger, Walsh, Blake, Tarleton, Springer, Maycumber, Fitzgibbon, and Lekanoff)
Current status – Vetoed by the Governor.
In the House – (Passed)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Finance February 6th; passed out of committee February 8th. Referred to Rules. Passed the House February 13th. House concurred in Senate changes March 11th.

In the Senate – (Passed)
Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology. Scheduled for a hearing February 20th; not heard. Had a hearing February 26th; replaced by a striker and voted out of committee February 27th. Referred to Ways and Means; had a hearing there on March 2nd. Passed out of committee March 9th; referred to Rules. Passed the Senate March 10th. Returned to the House for consideration of concurrence with Senate changes.
Next step would be – Signature by the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6665 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
The tax preference statement for the bill says it’s “the legislature’s specific public policy objective to extend the expiration date of these tax preferences in order to increase the ability of beneficiary facilities to provide at least seventy-five percent of their employees with medical and dental insurance and a retirement plan.” I don’t know if that actually requires facilities to do anything to meet that objective…

Summary –
The law currently exempts hog fuel used to produce electricity, steam, heat, or biofuel from the sales and use tax until 2024. The bill extends that tax exemption to 2045.

The striker only extends the exemption to 2034, and it specifies that the retirement plans mentioned in the intent statement include defined benefit plans, defined contribution plans, and employee investment plans with employer contributions.

HB2656

HB2656 – Reducing waste associated with non-compostable single-use food service products.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Gregerson (D; 33rd District; Kent)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy January 27th. Substitute with a number of small amendments passed out of committee January 6th. Referred to Appropriations; had a hearing there February 10th.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6627 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments – The substitute and the amendments are currently available in the folder with the materials for the committee’s meeting.

Summary –
Food services businesses that provide opportunities for consuming food on site would be prohibited from supplying customers with single use utensils, straws and condiment packets unless they asked for them. Businesses without on-site opportunities for eating and places with a drive-up window would have to ask if customers wanted them before providing any. They would have to be provided as separate items. (Utensils are defined as things like knives and chopsticks; they don’t include things like plates, bowls, cups, or bottles.) The bill would preempt local ordinances prohibiting businesses from providing them unless customers asked for them.

Beginning January 1, 2021, they can’t use styrofoam products for serving or packaging food.

Starting October 1st, 2021, and every year through 2029, the Department of Ecology is to identify the counties and cities with independent solid waste management plans that are served by composting facilities that can effectively deal with compostable food service products. Starting July 1, 2022, food service businesses in those jurisdictions are prohibited from selling or providing food in or with plastic, coated fiber, or coated paper catering trays and produce bags.

Starting on a date to be determined by the Department, they’re prohibited from selling or providing clear plastic food wrap and shrink wrap; plastic containers for uniquely shaped foods like deviled eggs and cupcakes; flexible plastic packaging used to preserve moisture and freshness; and plastic containers for hot meats such as ribs and rotisserie chicken. The Department is to determine the starting date for prohibiting each of these categories by seeing whether at least two suitable and readily available alternatives for the category exist and whether at least two vendors make a suitable alternative commercially available. If they do,  the prohibition of that category of items is to begin a year later, and the Department is to repeat this process once a year for any categories it hasn’t yet established a starting date for. On January 1, 2030, these rules are to become effective for all the product categories.

Food service businesses may use durable, reusable food service products; recyclable fiber-based, glass, or metal food ones; recyclable plastic bottles and beverage containers made from high density polyethylene (HDPE) or polyethylene terephthalate (PET);  prepackaged foods in plastic; and compostable food service products the Department has verified as free of per and poly fluoroalkyl substances.

It can grant one year waivers from the requirements, and renew them, if applicants show that a restricted category of plastic food service product doesn’t have at least two suitable and readily commercially available alternative products; that there aren’t at least two vendors making a suitable alternative commercially available; or that enforcing the requirements would cause undue hardship.

The bill creates a fee of one cent per item on plastic food service items that aren’t recyclable or compostable; and a fee of up to one cent per item on ones that are, based on the average net cost of recycling or composting each material type and form, and the amount of it used in plastic food service products sold in the state. (I think this means that if it cost $1,000/ton to recycle some kind of item, and there were 10 tons sold in the state, then the fee per item should be set to cover the estimated cost of recycling all of them, or to collect a total of $10,000 in my example.) The fees are to be adjusted for inflation, and products covered by a statewide plastic packaging product stewardship program are exempted. The money can be spent on administering the program; for the State’s solid waste planning, management, regulation, enforcement, technical assistance, and public education; for assisting local solid waste programs, and for supporting statewide composting.

Ecology is to create education and outreach programs about these requirements, and can assess fines of up to $100 a day for violations of them for small retail food service businesses and up to $5,000 a day for larger ones.

In preparation for the 2030 statewide restrictions on plastic food service products, Ecology’s to report every two years on the status of composting infrastructure available to local jurisdictions, and on whether adjusting the State’s definition of “compostable” would help assure that those products could actually be composted and managed effectively by facilities.

The bill adds compostable food products to the items that local solid waste management plans have to consider, and requires them to assess the logistical and economic feasibility of developing infrastructure, including appropriate collection services, to allow widespread commercial composting of the organics and compostable food service products from their jurisdiction by 2030.

HB2645

HB2648 – Tightens the solar PV module stewardship program in some small ways.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Smith (R; 10th District; Island County; Skagit & Snohomish)
Current status – Bill signed, but Section 2 – Study of recycling – vetoed by Governor.
In the House – (Passed)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy January 27th at 3:30. Amended and passed out of committee February 4th; referred to Rules. Amended on the floor by the prime sponsor and passed by the House February 16th. House concurred with Senate amendments March 10th.

In the Senate – (Passed)
Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology. Had a hearing February 20th. Replaced by a striker and passed out of committee February 25th. Referred to Ways and Means; had a hearing there on February 28th. Passed out of committee March 2nd and referred to Rules. Passed by the Senate March 7th. Returned to the House for possible concurrence with Senate amendments.
Next step would be – Signature by the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Governor’s Veto
Governor Inslee signed the bill, but vetoed Section 2, which created a task force to report to the Legislature and make recommendations on potential methods for managing end-of-life photovoltaic modules, because of coronavirus budget concerns.

Comments – The bill only requires notifying retailers, distributors, and installers about violations of the requirement for an approved stewardship plan, but it only imposes potential fines on the manufacturer of the panels.

The amendment in the House committee narrows manufacturers’ obligation to provide takeback locations to regions in which their modules “were used.” It delays the implementation and enforcement of the act for a year, until dates in 2023. It requires the Department of Ecology to create a task force to report to the Legislature and make recommendations on potential methods for managing end-of-life photovoltaic modules, including ones from utility scale projects. It lists a number of issues the report must cover, and a number of required members for the task force, but Ecology can add more.

The floor amendment replaces the Ecology task force with a WSU work group, subject to appropriations.

The committee striker in the Senate delays the date for submitting a stewardship plan by 2.5 years, until July 1, 2022; delays the reporting requirement for manufacturers by an additional year, until 2024; and delays enforcement by six months, until July 1, 2023.

Summary –
It would expand the current legislation to cover ground mounted panels connected to the grid. It would cover modules manufactured for use in the state as well as those for sale; and include panels acquired through remote offerings such as sales outlets, catalogs, or the internet. It would prohibit distributors, retailers, and installers from selling panels that weren’t covered by an approved stewardship plan, not just manufacturers, and would require the Department of Ecology to send a warning ordering them to stop if the manufacturer had not submitted a plan and gotten it approved by Ecology within thirty days.

HB2819

HB2819 – Expedites a pumped storage project by designating them as projects of statewide significance.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Mosbrucker (R; 14th District; Klickitat County)
Current status – Referred to the Governor for signature.
In the House – (Passed the House)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy February 3rd. Passed out of committee February 4th; referred to Rules. Amended on the floor and passed by the House February 18th.

In the Senate – (Passed the Senate)
Referred to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks; had a hearing and passed out of committee February 25th. Referred to Rules. Passed the Senate March 6th.
Next step would be – Signature by the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6578 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
In 2012 SB6044 slightly expanded the powers of PUDs along the Columbia by authorizing them to sell water to privately owned utilities for use in pumped storage projects, and to sell power from such projects. FERC recently approved a  permit authorizing a three year study for a 1,200 MW pumped storage project that National Grid wants to build in Goldendale, using water supplied by the Klickitat County PUD. According to that linked article, “The project would be on land owned by NSC Smelter at the former Columbia Gorge Aluminum smelter site, which is designated a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act contaminated site and subject to a cleanup effort being overseen by the Washington Department of Ecology. However, the department has said the pumped storage project will not hinder the cleanup process. … The commission also said the pumped-storage developer has shown its project boundary does not include any land subject to further cleanup activities. Still, FERC said the developer will have to show any future licensing for the project will not impede the cleanup.”

The floor amendment changed current law to require counties and cities with development projects of statewide significance to create a plan for consultation with affected tribes as part of the approval process.

Summary –
The bill would make pumped storage projects using water rights approved by the legislature for that purpose developments of statewide significance, which require:
(1) Expedited permit processing for the design and construction of the project;
(2) Expedited environmental review processing;
(3) Expedited processing of requests for street, right-of-way, or easement vacations necessary for the construction of the project;
(4) Participation of local officials on the team assembled under the requirements of RCW 43.157.030(2)(b); and
(5) Such other actions or items as are deemed necessary by the office of regulatory assistance for the design and construction of the project.

HB2811

HB2811 – Develops K-12 field work experiences in environmental and sustainability education.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Jesse Johnson (D; 30th District; Federal Way)
Current status – Referred to the Governor for signature.
In the House – (Passed)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Appropriations January 30th. Passed out of committee February 3rd; referred to Rules. Passed the House February 12th. House concurred in the Senate amendments March 10th.

In the Senate – (Passed)
Referred to the Senate Committee on Early Learning & K-12 Education. Had a hearing February 21st; amended and passed out of committee February 24th. Referred to Rules. Passed by the Senate March 6th; returned to the House for consideration of concurrence.
Next step would be – Referral to the Governor for signature.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
(There’s a House Bill Analysis.)
SB6124 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
The list of requirements for the “qualified non-profit” eligible for funding under the bill essentially specifies some particular organization, apparently the Pacific Education Institute. The committee amendment in the Senate made minor changes to the language which might make the process slightly more competitive.

Summary –
Subject to funding, the bill would have OSPI contract with a “qualified non-profit” to work with K-12 teachers and communities to develop local stewardship projects and work based learning opportunities in environmental science and engineering, natural resources, sustainability, renewable energy, agriculture, and outdoor recreation. The program’s supposed to integrate the state learning standards in English language arts, mathematics, and science with the FieldSTEM model of outdoor field studies and project-based and work-based learning opportunities. It’s supposed to provide models for integrating the history, culture, and government of the nearest tribe or tribes in the curriculum. It’s to prioritize schools that have been identified for improvement through the Washington framework and communities historically underserved by science education including tribal compact schools, ones with high free and reduced-price lunch populations, rural and remote schools, and schools serving migrant students, students in alternative learning environments, students of color, English language learner students, and students receiving special education services.

Details –
The bill specifies that any “qualified non-profit” contracted to develop these programs must be physically located in Washington; have at least fifteen years of experience collaborating with school districts across the state to provide professional development to K-12 educators about teaching students real-world environmental science and engineering outside the classroom; must deliver project-based learning materials and resources that incorporate career connections to local businesses and community-based organizations, contain professional development support for classroom teachers, have measurable assessment objectives, and have demonstrated community support; and that its materials must align with the State’s learning standards and emphasize the next generation science standards…

HB2372

HB2372 – Specifies that the four legislative members of the Building Code Council are voting members.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Hoff (R, 18th District, Southwest Washington)
Current status – Scheduled for a hearing in the House Committee on Local Government January 28th at 10:00 AM.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6464 would do the same thing, through slightly different wording.

Summary –
The State Building Code Council currently consists of fifteen members appointed by the Governor, two Representatives and two Senators, and a non-voting employee of the electrical division of the department of labor and industries. The bill specifies that the legislators are voting members. (I don’t know if there has has been some question about that, or if this is just tidying things up…)

HB2768

HB2768 – Revises the State’s urban forestry program to include tribes, and to prioritize salmon and environmental justice goals.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Ramos (D; 5th District; Issaquah) (By request of the Department of Natural Resources.)
Current status – Did not pass out of opposite house by fiscal cutoff; sent to the “X” file.
In the House – (Passed the House)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, & Natural Resources January 28th. Substitute passed out of committee February 4th; referred to Appropriations. Had a hearing there February 8th. Passed out of Appropriations February 11th; referred to Rules. Passed the House February 16th.

In the Senate –
Referred to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks; had a hearing February 25th. Passed out of committee February 25th; referred to Ways and Means and had a hearing there February 29th. Passed out of committee with a minor amendment March 2nd. Referred to Rules.
Next step would be – Dead bill…
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6529 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
(The carbon sequestration bill Representative Ramos introduced at the request of DNR in 2019 , HB2047, has gone to the House Rules “X” file.)

This bill does a great deal of redlining to make very minor alterations in the current laws; Sections 9 and 10 contain most of the significant changes, as far as I can see.

The substitute specifies that the bill’s provisions don’t apply to lands subject to or designated under the forest practices act; to natural area preserves; natural resources conservation areas; or to land subject to timber and forestland taxation or open space, agricultural, and timberlands taxation. It directs the Department of Natural Resources to conduct pilot projects in at least two watersheds, one on each side of the Cascades, to identify areas where urban forestry will generate the most combined benefits for canopy, health disparities, and salmon. It no longer requires a statewide urban and community forest inventory.

Summary –

The bill requires the Department of Natural Resources to do and periodically update a statewide inventory of urban and community forests, using protocols established by the Forest Service, to produce statistically relevant estimates of the quantity, health, composition, and benefits of urban trees and forests.

It requires the Department to prioritize regions for delivery of urban forestry programs, policies, and activities by including criteria related to human health and salmon recovery.

It’s to identify these regions using analyses and tools including:
(a) Assessing tree canopy cover and urban forestry inventory data, using recent information when it’s available;
(b) Identifying highly impacted communities at the census tract level using health disparity mapping tools such as the Department of Health’s Washington tracking network;
(c) Using salmon and orca recovery data including the Puget Sound Partnership action agenda and other regional and statewide recovery plans and efforts to target program delivery in areas where there are significant opportunities related to salmon and orca habitat and health; and by;
(d) Using the department’s twenty-year forest health strategic plan.

It may consult with other state agencies; a statewide organization representing urban and community forestry programs; health experts; and salmon recovery experts as part of this analysis, and may hire consultants to get more information or collaborate with local governments to inventory prioritized urban forests where adequate data is not available. It’s to identify areas where urban forestry will generate the greatest combination of benefits related to canopy needs, health disparities, and salmon habitat.

The bill expands the current law to include tribal lands, and requires the Department to consult with the appropriate tribes in watersheds where urban forestry work is taking place.

Fifty percent of the resources used in delivering the policies, programs, and activities of the program, including ones for establishing and maintaining new trees and for maintaining existing canopy must benefit vulnerable populations and be delivered within a quarter mile of highly impacted communities. The most resources must be allocated to the highest impacted communities within these areas. It must encourage communities to include participation and input by vulnerable populations in the development of forestry plans, through community organizations and by members of the public.

The Department must provide technical assistance and capacity building resources and opportunities to cities, counties, federally recognized tribes, and other public and private entities in developing and coordinating policies, programs, and activities promoting urban and community forestry. It can use existing inventory tools or develop additional ones to help them collect tree data that informs management, planning, and policy development. (The Department may consult with the Department of Commerce in the process, on issues including the intersections between urban forestry programs and growth management act planning.) The Department is to help cities’ urban forest managers access carbon markets by working to ensure these inventory tools are compatible with existing and developing urban forest carbon market reporting protocols. It can use existing tools, and develop innovative ones to support urban forestry programs including comprehensive tool kit packages (tree kits) that can easily be shared, locally adapted, and used.

The department may use existing tools to help communities develop urban forestry management plans, which may include:
(a) Inventory and assessment of the jurisdiction’s urban and community forests utilized as a dynamic management tool to set goals, implement programs, and monitor outcomes that may be adjusted over time;
(b) Canopy cover, reforestation and canopy expansion, forest stand and diversity goals;
(c) Maximizing vegetated stormwater management;
(d) Environmental health goals specific to air quality, habitat for wildlife, and energy conservation;
(e) Standards for tree selection, siting, planting, pruning and maintenance for new and established trees, including disease and pest management;
(f) Staff and volunteer training requirements emphasizing appropriate expertise and professionalism;
(g) Wood waste utilization;
(h) Community outreach, participation, education programs, and partnerships with nongovernment organizations;
(i) Time frames for achieving plan goals, objectives, and tasks;
(j) Monitoring and measuring progress toward those benchmarks and goals;
(k) Consistency with the urban wildland interface codes developed by the State Building Code Council;
(l) Maximizing building heating and cooling energy efficiency through appropriate siting of trees; and,
(m) A number of other items.

The department can use existing tools to help communities develop urban forestry ordinances, including such elements as:
(a) Tree canopy cover, density, and spacing;
(b) Tree conservation and retention;
(c) Vegetated stormwater runoff management using native trees and appropriate nonnative, nonnaturalized vegetation;
(d) Clearing, grading, protection of soils, reductions in soil compaction, and use of appropriate soils with low runoff potential and high infiltration rates;
(e) Appropriate tree siting and maintenance for vegetation management practices and programs to prevent vegetation from interfering with or damaging utilities and public facilities;
(f) Native species and nonnative, nonnaturalized species diversity selection to reduce disease and pests in urban forests;
(g) Tree maintenance;
(h) Street tree installation and maintenance;
(i) Tree and vegetation buffers for riparian areas, critical areas, transportation and utility corridors, and commercial and residential areas;
(j) Tree assessments for new construction permitting;
(k) Recommended forest conditions for different land use types;
(l) Variances for hardship and safety;
(m) Variances to avoid conflicts with renewable solar energy infrastructure, passive solar building design, and locally grown produce; and
(n) Permits and appeals.

HB2773

HB2773 – Regulations for peer to peer vehicle sharing programs.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Kirby (D; 29th District; Tacoma) (Co-sponsor Vick)
Current status – Failed to pass out of committee by cutoff.
In the House – (Passed)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Consumer Protection & Business February 5th. Replaced by a striker which substituted the language of HB2918 for this bill’s, and passed out of committee February 7th; referred to Rules. Passed the House nearly unanimously February 19th.

In the Senate –
Referred to the Senate Committee on Financial Institutions, Economic Development & Trade; had a hearing February 25th.
Next step would be – Dead bill…
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
HB2918 was another bill on the subject, dealing with the same issues with some differences in language and detail which may matter to lawyers. This bill had some additional provisions which are summarized here at the end, below the asterisks.

This bill has now been replaced by the language of HB2918. The staff note at the bottom of the striker doing that, which is currently available in the folder with the materials for the committee meeting,  discusses the new bill as if it merely made a few adjustments to the State’s current law governing P2P car sharing, which seems to be RCW 48.175.  However, I don’t see that cited in either of these bills, or in the staff report for the original HB2773, and I don’t see why the staff says that… so I can’t offer much help about what’s really going on here.

Summary –
The bill makes a program connecting peer-to-peer vehicle owners with people driving their cars assume the full liability of a car owner for any bodily injury or property damage to third parties, uninsured and underinsured motorist benefits, and personal injury losses during the sharing period in the amount stated in an agreement. (That may not be less than those set forth in chapter 46.29 RCW,  which I think means at least twenty-five thousand dollars for bodily injury or death of one person in an accident, fifty thousand dollars for bodily injury or death of two or more people, and ten thousand dollars for property damage.) The program is liable even if its insurance has lapsed or it doesn’t have coverage. It’s not liable if there’s been a serious misrepresentation or omission by the car’s owner before the trip in which the accident occurred or if the owner acts in concert with a driver who fails to return the vehicle in accordance with the agreement.

Companies are required to ensure that there is primary liability coverage, at least at the minimum levels the State requires, for the owner and the driver, and that the insurance recognizes that the vehicle will be used in a peer-to-peer sharing program or doesn’t exclude that. (The coverage may be provided by the owner, the driver, the company, or some combination of those. I think that Section 7 means that the company is not required to provide any coverage, only to ensure that there is the minimum.) If the company is providing all or part of the required insurance it assumes the primary liability if there’s a dispute about who was in control of the car at the time the loss occurred or it’s failed to provide required information about liability coverage to the driver or driver, but it’s to be indemnified by the owner’s insurance company if it’s determined that the owner was in control of the car at the time of the loss. The car sharing company is also required to provide the primary minimum coverage if the driver or owner was supposed to, but actually doesn’t have insurance that provides it.

The company has to notify owners with liens on their cars, when they first register and again “prior to the time the owner makes the vehicle available for use”, that allowing a car to be shared  may violate the terms of the lien. If an insurance company chooses to defend or indemnify a claim against an owner or a driver for a loss while a car was being shared, and the company’s policy excluded that coverage, it can seek reimbursement from the car sharing company’s insurer.

Insurance companies’ liability policies may exclude any and all coverage for vehicles, including those used in peer-to-peer sharing programs. Car sharing companies are required to keep records on the times cars were used, the fees paid by drivers, and the revenues received by owners for at least the length of the applicable personal injury statute of limitations.

Car sharing agreements have to inform the owner and the driver that they’re potentially liable for any economic loss that violating the terms and conditions of the agreement causes the company, and that their car insurance policies will not cover those. They have to inform them that the company’s insurance may not cover them if the car is shared past the termination time in the agreement, that owner’s liability insurance may not provide coverage for a shared vehicle, and if there are conditions under which the driver has to have a policy providing primary coverage with certain limits to book a shared vehicle. The agreement also has to provide the daily rate, fees, any applicable insurance or protection package costs that are charged to the owner or the driver, and an emergency telephone number for roadside assistance and other customer service.

Companies can only enter sharing agreements with legally authorized drivers. They’re responsible for any equipment they install in the car, and can’t charge an owner if it’s stolen, unless the owner caused that; if a driver damages or loses their equipment, they can try to recover for that loss. They must verify that there are no outstanding safety recalls on cars registering for the program, and notify owners that if they receive new recalls they’re responsible for taking cars out of the program until the problem’s been fixed.

*****

This bill includes car-sharing agreements as transactions covered by the State’s consumer protection act, unless a violation is the result of false, misleading, or inaccurate information provided to the company by an owner or driver. It specifies the conditions for delivery of notices and disclosures for master or member agreements for peer-to-peer car sharing companies and any other rental car companies that may provide cars to drivers in similar ways,  without a visit to a retail service location, executing an agreement, or giving the customer the terms and conditions at the time of service. In these situations, companies do not have to physically compare a driver’s license and the driver if they have previously verified that the customer is a licensed driver and requires documentation that verifies the customer’s identity before they take possession of the vehicle.

The bill allows airports to require rental car companies or car sharing companies providing cars parked on airport property, or used for (or advertised as being available for) trips to or from the airport to sign contracts with reasonable standards, regulations, procedures, and fees.

HB2713

HB2713 – Requires the State and local governments to use compost and reimburses farmers for using it.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Walen (D; 48th District; Kirkland)
Current status – Bill signed, but Governor vetoed Section 4, which created a pilot program to reimburse farmers who purchased compost from solid waste recycling facilities.
In the House – (Passed)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on State Government & Tribal Relations February 5th. Substitute passed out of committee February 7th; referred to Appropriations. Had a hearing there February 10th; passed out of Appropriations February 11th. Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor and passed by the House February 16th. House concurred in the Senate amendments March 9th.

In the Senate – (Passed)
Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology; had a hearing February 25th. Amended and passed out of committee February 26th. Referred to Ways and Means; had a hearing there on February 28th. Passed out of committee and referred to Rules on March 2nd. Passed the Senate March 5th. Returned to the House for possible concurrence.
Next step would be – Signature by the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
In the House –
The substitute also provides exceptions to the requirement for using compost in projects if the total cost would be financially prohibitive; if its application of compost will have detrimental impacts on the soil used for a specific crop; if the project consists of growing trees in a greenhouse; or if the available compost hasn’t been certified as free of crop-specific pests and pathogens.

It now encourages local governments to buy back compost, rather than requiring that. It requires participants in the pilot program to comply with agricultural pest control rules before transporting or applying compost, and it limits reimbursements in the program to compost that’s from a facility with a solid waste handling permit and hasn’t been created by the operation seeking reimbursement.

The floor amendment prioritizes reimbursements in the pilot program to small farming operations, and makes them subject to appropriations, and makes a couple of small adjustments.

In the Senate –
The Senate committee amendment makes a few small changes in the details of the pilot grant program.

Summary –
The bill requires state agencies and local governments to consider whether compost can be used in projects when they’re planning them. If it can be used, they’re to do that, unless it isn’t available within a reasonable time, doesn’t meet existing purchasing standards, or doesn’t meet Federal or State health and safety standards. They’re encouraged to give priority to compost that’s produced locally, compost that’s certified by a nationally recognized organization, and compost that’s produced from municipal waste.

Local governments with residential composting services must have purchasing agreements with their processors to buy back at least fifty percent of the compost produced from their organic waste, and the processor’s required to charge a fair competitive market rate. They’re encourage to buy compost made from at least 8% food waste.

The Department of Agriculture is to create a three-year pilot program, beginning July 1 2020, to reimburse farming operations in the state for the costs of purchasing and using compost products, including transportation, equipment, spreading, and labor. (The Department is to create a new position for a program manager with the knowledge and expertise necessary to facilitate the division and distribution of reimbursements and manage the day-to-day coordination of the program.) Payments are limited to fifty percent of the costs and capped at fifty thousand dollars a year; farmers can’t be paid for compost that they’ve transferred, or intend to transfer to another individual or entity, whether for compensation or not .

HB2413

HB2413 – Funds DNR’s Forest Health plans through an annual surcharge of $5 on property and casualty insurance policies.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Fitzgibbon (D; 34th District; Vashon Island & NW Seattle)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Appropriations.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
Senator Braun’s SB6195 is an alternative proposal, which would authorize $500 million in State bonds over the next eight biennia to fund forest health activities, and focuses more narrowly on actively managing working forests.

Summary –
In 2017, the Legislature passed SB5546 unanimously, directing the Department of Natural Resources to address wildfire risk by developing a forest health assessment and treatment framework, with the goal of assessing and treating 1.25 million acres by 2033.

DNR’s response, the 20-Year Forest Health Strategic Plan, would approach the problem through active management, using strategies like thinning and prescribed burns. This bill would authorize funding the plan through an annual surcharge of $5 on property and casualty insurance policies, which companies could include in their rates or bill customers for directly.  (Medical liability policies would be exempted.)

At least $25 million a biennium would be appropriated, and used for:
(a) Fire preparedness activities consistent with the goals of DNR’s “10-year wildland fire protection strategy” including funding for full-time firefighters, investments in firefighting equipment and in technology;
(b) Fire prevention activities consistent with all of  DNR’s forest health plans, including the National Fire Protection Association’s Firewise USA program and the fire-adapted communities network programs to help communities take action before, during, and after wildfires;
(c) Activities to restore and improve forest health and reduce vulnerability to drought, insect infestation, disease, and other threats,  including forest management such as thinning and use of prescribed fire; postfire recovery activities, such as reforestation; and research and design related to cross-laminated timber, other emerging products, and markets for them. (Funding priority has to be given to programs, activities, or projects aligned with DNR’s  plans , and prioritized according to some provisions in current law.);
(d) Funding of fire prevention, preparedness, or recovery activities for other state agencies consistent with DNR’s  plans, and;
(e) Funding for developing and maintaining tracking and reporting systems to ensure accountability and transparency in wildfire prevention and preparedness activities and costs.

The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee, in consultation with DNR and the Office of the Insurance Commissioner, would report to the legislature on the amount raised, the number and type of policies surcharge applies to, the effectiveness of the spending, and on recommendations about any necessary or advisable adjustments.

The bill says that the Legislature “may direct” DNR’s forest health advisory committee and its wildland fire advisory committee  to provide recommendations for these investments. The committees would be required to identify highly impacted communities using environmental justice or equity focused tools, such as the Washington tracking network’s environmental health disparities tool, to identify highly impacted communities (as defined in RCW 19.405.020). If the committees were directed to provide recommendations, they would have to use analysis of how to benefit those communities as a factor in determining their recommendations.

Details –
The surcharge wouldn’t count in the calculations the Insurance Commissioner does about whether other states or countries are imposing more taxes , fees, or other charges on our insurers than we’re imposing on their insurers.

HB2692

HB2756 – Allows triple trailer rigs on State highways.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Doglio (D, 22nd District, Olympia)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Transportation.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6597 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
The EPA has a flyer about combination freight vehicles that estimates turnpike double and triple trailers reduce fuel use by 21%. (Some studies also suggest they’re involved in fewer accidents, though that may reflect other factors, like their getting better drivers at this point.)

Summary –
Currently, the law prohibits operating any semi with a  trailer longer than fifty-three or with two trailers longer than sixty-one feet on state highways. (It exempts empty double trailers or semitrailers weighing less than 26,000 pounds if they’re part of the inventory of a manufacturer, distributor, or dealer, and the entire rig is less than eighty-two feet.)

The bill requires the Department of Transportation to implement rules allowing semis with three trailers to operate on designated State highways; the rules may include other operating conditions the Department specifies to ensure a safe and efficient highway system. (This is dependent on federal approval of a variance to the freeze of state law imposed by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, so presumably DOT also has to apply for the variance.)

The Department is also to produce an annual status and performance report on the volume of triple trailer traffic, and the segments of the trucking industry taking advantage of the variance; and on their impacts on highway safety, traffic movement, and the environment.

HB2756

HB2756 – Requires utilities to let customers opt out of smart meter installations.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Shea (R, 4th District, Spokane Valley) (There’s no longer a legislative web page for him, since he’s been suspended from the Republican caucus.)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Environment and Energy.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill requires utilities to provide an option allowing retail customer to opt out of having a smart meter installation on their premises. They must provide an opt-out form for customers on request, and may make the option available through a web page. They could assess a cost-based fee for the option, mitigated to the fullest extent possible so as not to create a disincentive for customers.

Utilities would be required to provide general information and notices about advanced metering infrastructure deployment and grid modernization efforts through bill inserts or on their web sites. They would also have to provide individualized customer notices, using methods like bill inserts, separate mailings, door hangers, or electronic notification. These would have to include an explanation of the infrastructure changes; the ratepayer benefits of advanced metering infrastructure and grid modernization; an estimated timeline for smart meter installations in the area; an explanation of opt-out options or where to find additional information; and company contact information for further inquiries.

HB2748

HB2748 – Requires relatively large employers providing a parking subsidy to offer a cash out option.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Ramel (D; 40th District; Bellingham)
Current status – Passed the House Committee on Labor & Workplace Standards January 30th. Referred to Rules. Failed to pass out of the House by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
In a parking cash out an employer offers a cash allowance to an employee as an alternative to the subsidy they’d otherwise get to provide the employee with parking. For what it’s worth, the findings say, “According to some studies, parking cash out programs tend to reduce driving to work by twenty percent or more.”

Summary –
The bill requires employers with fifty or more employees in the state that provide a parking subsidy to offer a cash out option to the employees who get it. The subsidy’s set at the difference between what it would cost the employer to provide a parking space and what, if anything, the employee would pay for it.

A program may require employees who choose the cash option to certify that they’ll comply with guidelines designed to avoid neighborhood parking problems, with a provision that employees who don’t comply with the guidelines will no longer be eligible for it.

The bill exempts employers who are easing parking and would have to pay penalties if they reduced the number of spaces.

HB2744

HB2744 – Including the use of low carbon materials and contractors’ disclosure of labor law compliance in the awarding of state construction contracts.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Doglio (D; 22nd District; Thurston County) (Co-Sponsors Duerr, Davis, Fitzgibbon, Ramel)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Capital Budget Committee on January 28th; substitute passed out of committee February 6th. Referred to Appropriations.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
In the 2018 session, Representative Doglio introduced HB2412, “Buy Clean” legislation roughly modeled on California’s. It would have had state agencies awarding construction contracts require environmental product declarations for various materials. It was replaced by a substitute bill, which would simply have had the University of Washington develop methods to collect environmental product declarations for building materials, test them on six public works projects, and report to the Legislature on the results. That didn’t make it out of the House Rules Committee, but the study was funded in the capital budget and completed in January 2019.

Some of the changes in the substitute are summarized on the last page of the House Bill Report for that.

Summary –
This new bill covers projects receiving funds from the capital budget for buildings with more than five thousand square feet of occupied or conditioned space, renovations of such buildings that cost more than 50% of the assessed value, and transportation projects funded or carried out by the Department of Transportation that cost over $1 million and use more than a minimal amount of covered materials.

After 18 months in which it would just be encouraged, bidders for contracts on these projects would be required to include environmental product declarations providing robust full life-cycle assessments of the associated greenhouse gas emissions for any concrete; rebar; structural steel and unit masonry; wood; wood products; and gauge metal products intended for decking, wall or floor system studs that they proposed using. Successful bidders would be required to submit additional facility specific environmental product declarations for materials before their installation, if those declarations for the particular facilities producing their materials already existed.

The Department of Commerce would set a maximum acceptable global warming potential for each category of material, at approximately the eightieth percentile of the product weighted distributions of the emissions intensity of each category of product, and express that as a number stating the maximum acceptable facility specific global warming potential for each category. (If funds were made available for it, the Department could provide at least half the cost of developing  their environmental product declarations to small businesses.)  It’s to report on its methods to the Legislature, and to adjust the acceptable value downward every three years. In each cycle, the value’s to be set at the lower of:
(a) the 90th percentile of the values submitted during the previous three years, stepped down at a rate which would get the acceptable value to zero by 2050, or,
(b) the maximum acceptable value in 2023, stepped down at a rate which would get to a 50% reduction by 2030. (After that, the maximum acceptable value from 2030 would be stepped down at a rate which would get it to zero by 2050.)

Beginning July 1, 2023, when a bid for a primary structural material from a company meeting the State’s other criteria for responsible bidders doesn’t exceed the maximum acceptable global warming potential for the material, an awarding authority must award the contract to the bid with prices lower than the engineer’s estimate that uses the lower carbon eligible material. [I think this means that if there’s more than one otherwise acceptable bid under the engineer’s estimate the contract must go to the bid using the lowest carbon material, even if that’s higher than other bids below the estimate. A “primary” structural material isn’t defined in the bill; I think this just means what the bill does define as “structural materials” – ones that support loads in a building as part of “its primary structure”, or support loads in a transportation project, or form a “primary lateral system” resisting wind and earthquake loads.] It must consider awarding a contract to a bid that uses the lower carbon eligible primary structural material if the bid is no greater than fifteen percent above the lowest bid; and it may award a contract to a bid that uses the lower carbon eligible material even if the bid is more than fifteen percent above the lowest bid.

After 18 months in which it would just be encouraged, the bill would require bidders or proposers for one of these project contracts to report on their compliance, including their subcontractor’s compliance, with the domestic and applicable international labor laws in countries where they produce goods or services. The Office of Financial Management is to incorporate requirements for state agencies to consider lower carbon building materials and domestic labor law compliance declarations in existing business processes and tools including, but not limited to, facility planning, predesign, and budget instructions. [As far as I can see, the bill doesn’t require taking the compliance reports into account in awarding contracts, though perhaps that’s required somehow by some other existing law…]

Beginning in 2023, to the extent that it’s practical, state contracts and the building code are to use performance based specifications for concrete and unit masonry used structurally, not prescriptive specifications.

The bill concludes by amending quite a few sections of the current laws about awarding contracts for various kinds of projects, by agencies and various jurisdictions, to say that they have to consider the additional criteria allowed or required in the bill, if those rules are applicable.

HB2722

HB2722 – Requires increasing recycled content in plastic beverage containers.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Mead (D; 44th District; Everett and Marysville) (Co-Sponsors Fitzgibbon, Peterson, Doglio, Goodman, Gregerson, Slatter, Tarleton, Davis, Duerr, Ramel, Walen, Cody, Senn, Pollet)
Current status – Vetoed by the Governor.
In the House – (Passed)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 3rd. Amended substitute passed out of committee February 6th. Replaced by the prime sponsor’s striker on the floor and passed by the House February 13th. On March 7th, the House refused to concur in the Senate’s amendments; bill returned to the Senate, which may recede from the amendments. On March 11th, the House concurred in the Senate’s new version.

In the Senate – (Passed)
Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology. Scheduled for a hearing February 20th at 10:00 AM, but not heard. Had a hearing February 25th. Replaced by a striker and passed out of committee February 27th. Referred to Ways and Means, and had a hearing there on February 29th. Passed out of committee March 2nd and referred to Rules. Passed by the Senate March 5th, and returned to the House for concurrence.  On March 10th, as I understand it, the Senate receded from its previous changes, replaced the bill with a new striker which was amended on the floor, and then passed that version. The new version went back to the House for possible concurrence.
Next step would be – Signature by the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6645 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
The bill doesn’t currently seem to say that manufacturers have to report the number of their containers covered by the bill to Ecology each year, though that’s assumed in other sections.

In the House –
The substitute reduces the requirement for the first four year period from 15% to 10%. It shifts from assessing fines per container for violations to fines per pound; they would now be from $0.5 to $0.15 per pound when manufacturers have at least seventy-five percent of the required recycled content; from $0.10 to $0.20 per pound when they have between fifty percent and seventy-five percent of that; from $0.15 to $0.25 per pound when they have between twenty-five and fifty percent of it; from $0.20 to $0.30 per pound  when they have at least fifteen percent but less than twenty-five percent of it; and $0.25 to $0.30 when they have less than fifteen percent of the required recycled plastic. (There’s about a pound of plastic in ten 2-liter bottles or in forty-five single serving bottles, so a fine that was one cent per container or ten cents for the 2-liter bottles would now be between $0.15 and $0.25, but a fine that would have been $0.45 for the single bottles would now still be between $0.15 and $0.25.)

The substitute also gives manufacturers room to negotiate with Ecology about other things besides the size of the fines, requiring the Director to consider whether the minimum recycled content requirements should be waived or reduced at least once a year, and requiring the Department to consider equitable factors in deciding whether to assess a fee and its amount including the nature and circumstances of the violation; actions taken by the manufacturer to correct it; the manufacturer’s history of compliance; and its size and economic condition. (In addition, it directs Ecology to consider granting a waiver, reduction, or extension of the fees to a manufacturer that has demonstrated progress toward meeting the requirements if it hasn’t met them or anticipates that it won’t be able to.) The amendment merely exempts wine pouches and bladders from the requirements.

The striker limits the containers the bill covers to bottles. It moves the initial compliance date back to 2022, and makes minor adjustments in some other time periods. It adds emissions associated with the transportation of recycled plastic to the items Ecology is to take into account. It now specifies that Ecology must consider equitable factors in decisions about fines; adds consideration of whether violations were due to circumstances beyond the manufacturer’s reasonable control or were unavoidable; and limits the use of fines to supporting the State’s new recycling development center.

In the Senate –
The committee striker makes minor technical adjustments, and moves the date at which manufacturers become subject to fines for failing to meet the requirements back a year, to January 1, 2023.

The new striker removes some ambiguity about when manufacturers become subject to fees for violations, gives the Pollution Control Hearings Board authority to review appeals of fees and of any adjustments of recycled content rates, and makes some technical changes. The floor amendment preempts local authority to implement recycled content requirements for plastic beverage containers.

Summary –
The bill requires increasing in the average annual level of post-consumer recycled plastic in a manufacturers’ beverage containers, beginning with at least 15% in the period between the beginning of 2021 and the end of 2024. The requirement goes up to 25% from January 2025 through the end of 2030; increases to 50% from then to the end of 2034, and is 75% after that.

It requires manufacturers’ to report to the Department of Ecology each year on the percentages of virgin plastic and recycled plastic in the containers they sold or distributed in the state during the previous year. They’re subject to the following fines (adjusted for inflation) if they fail to meet the requirements:
(a) $0.0025 for each container when they have at least seventy-five percent of the required recycled content;
(b)$0.005 for each container when they have between fifty percent and seventy-five percent of that;
(c) $0.01 for each container when they have between twenty-five and fifty percent of it;
(d) $0.015 for each container when they have at least fifteen percent but less than twenty-five percent of it; and
(e) $0.02 for each container when they have less than fifteen percent of the required recycled plastic.
Ecology’s authorized to conduct audits and inspections and there’s an additional penalty of $1.15/pound for any over-reporting of recycled content it discovers through those or some other means.

The bill doesn’t apply to polycoated cartons, foil pouches, drink boxes, refillable plastic beverage containers, infant formula, medical containers, or others Ecology decides to exempt.

HB2714

HB2714 – Valuing the carbon in forest riparian easements.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Hoff (R; 18th District; Southwest Washington) (Co-sponsors Fitzgibbon, Orcutt, Blake, Chapman, Lekanoff, Van Werven, Tharinger, and Kretz)
Current status – Did not pass out of opposite house by fiscal cutoff; sent to the “X” file.
In the House – (Passed the House)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture and Natural Resources January 28th. Substitute bill passed out of committee February 4th; referred to Appropriations. Had a hearing there February 8th; passed out of Appropriations February 11th. Referred to Rules. Passed the House unanimously February 16th.

In the Senate –
Referred to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks; had a hearing February 28th; replaced by a striker, amended, passed out of committee, and referred to Rules.
Next step would be – Dead bill…
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6498 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
The committee substitute adds some language to the findings that supports applying sustainable management techniques to currently unmanaged forests and transferring carbon from standing forests to wood products.

It also requires the Department of Natural Resources to calculate the amount of carbon stored in qualifying timber in future riparian easements, and specifies that landowners are free to monetize the value of the stored carbon in existing easements through markets. It requires any state program that places a value on carbon to include this carbon, and specifies that if the State starts valuing carbon, it must reimburse landowners for the value of the stored carbon in easements as well as for the value of the timber, or allow owners to market the stored carbon separately.

The striker in the Senate committee no longer requires DNR to calculate the amount of carbon in future easements, and it removes the provision I’ve summarized in the last clause of the previous paragraph, beginning with “and specifies that if….”. (I don’t think that actually made a substantive change in the bill, since as I read it, I think that other language in it had the same effect…) However, the amendment changed the language which said that any state program that placed a value on carbon must include the value of the stored carbon in easements to say one “may” do that.

Summary –
The bill amends the current legislation about compensating landowners for forest riparian easements, specifying that the fair market value of the qualifying timber has to include any value attributable to the carbon stored in it, or reserve that value to be otherwise used or marketed by the landowner.

HB2652

HB2652 – Creates standards for producing, labeling, and advertising ammonia made with renewable resources.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Doglio (D; 22nd District; Thurston County)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, & Natural Resources January 24th. Motion to pass a substitute out of committee, with what seem like minor technical changes, failed February 6th. Failed to make it out of committee by 2020 cutoff; dead bill.
Next step would be –
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
According to the findings, Washington has low-cost and curtailed power during the spring runoff which could be used to produce ammonia fertiizer relatively cheaply, and with low emissions. (Producing fertilizer from fossil fuels creates 2.9 metric tons of CO2e emissions for each ton of fertilizer.) Renewable ammonia  would still be more expensive, but the standards are intended to help create a market for it.

Summary –
The bill would create a certification and labeling program for renewable ammonia and products made using it. The materials and the energy used to make it would have to be renewable resources. (Those are defined to include renewable natural gas; renewable hydrogen; biodiesel that isn’t derived from crops raised on land cleared from old growth or first growth forests; and biomass energy.) Renewable ammonia could also be labeled as “green ammonia” or “sustainable ammonia”; manufacturers and wholesalers would have to be certified to use those labels on products.

The bill authorizes the Department of Agriculture to develop rules for the program, which must cover its full cost, and include the creation of a public registry of manufacturers, processors, producers, and products that have received certification. (They may also include rules covering the number and scheduling of on-site visits, both announced unannounced, by certification personnel; recordkeeping requirements; and the submission of product samples for chemical or other analysis.) It’s authorized to take actions, conduct proceedings, and enter orders needed to carry out the program, including inspecting manufacturing facilities and processing facilities. It may conduct evaluations in retail stores to verify compliance with the labeling and advertising requirements; can issue cease and desist orders about violations; and can impose a fine of up to $1,000 plus the costs of investigating and taking appropriate administrative and enforcement action for a violation.

HB2651

HB2651 – Addresses food waste by standardizing labels for food’s freshness or expiration.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Doglio (D; 22nd District; Thurston County)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, & Natural Resources January 24th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
If labels on food for sale in intrastate commerce after January 1, 2022 to use a quality date or a safety date, the bill requires using the phrases “best if used by” or “best if used or frozen by”  to indicate the quality date; and the  phrases “use by” or “use by or freeze by” to indicate the safety date. (Labels could also say that the food was best used or consumed within a specified number of days of being opened; or indicate the date on which it was packed or packaged.) The bill prohibits using a sell by date or the phrases “pull by” or “pull date”, but perishable packed food with a shelf life of less than thirty days would still be required to indicate a pull date with a month and day.

The enforcement of the rules must be based primarily on complaints filed with the Department of Health or a local health jurisdiction with delegated enforcement authority. (The Department could create a webpage or a hotline for handling complaints, but would not have to investigate each one or handle them in a specified length of time.  The penalty for a violation is limited to $500, but each day on which a non-compliant item is sold counts as a violation.

The bill requires retail spaces over 10,000 sq. ft. that sell food to display at least three signs with specified text to educate consumers about the labeling system.

 

HB2696

HB2696 – Prohibits labeling or advertising for plant-based alternatives from containing any terms for foods containing meat, including “meat”, “burger”, “sausage”, etc.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Dent (R, 13th District, Moses Lake) (Co-Sponsors Blake, McCaslin, Callan, Eslick, Springer, Griffey, Boehnke, Maycumber, Dye, Chandler, Kretz, and  Schmick)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, & Natural Resources January 29th. Substitute passed out of committee February 5th; referred to Rules February 10th. Failed to pass out of the House by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6329 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments – If you’re interested in the potential disruption of the current meat and dairy industry by precision fermented proteins like the heme in Impossible Burgers, you might read  Tony Seba’s “Rethinking Food and Agriculture.”

The substitute shifts from requiring the phrase, “this product does not contain meat”, to requiring at least one of several possible words or phrases that indicate that the product does not contain meat, like “plant-based,” “veggie,” or “meat-free.”

Summary –
The bill prohibits using “identifiable meat terms” in labeling or advertising food that doesn’t contain meat, unless there’s a disclaimer in the same type immediately after the term saying, “This product does not contain meat,” or the term is preceded by “imitation” in the same type, like “imitation burger.”

Using the terms without the disclaimers would qualify as misbranding and presumably subject one to legal penalties, though I don’t know what those are.

 

 

HB2609

HB2609 – Adding proportional greenhouse emissions reductions and resiliency to growth management planning.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Duerr (D; 1st District; Bothell)
Current status – Scheduled for a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy January 28th at 3:30.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6335 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
The first section of this bill, which adds addressing climate change to goals for regional planning processes, and is summarized in the first paragraph below,  is identical to all of Representative Duerr’s HB2427.

Summary –
The Growth Management Act currently lists fourteen goals that are supposed to guide the development and adoption of comprehensive plans and development regulations for cities and counties planning with that framework. The bill adds a fifteenth, which says that they’re supposed to ensure that their own comprehensive plans and development regulations, and the regional policies, plans, and strategies for their countywide planning framework (under RCW 36.70A.210) and for their regional transportation planning (under RCW 47.80) “adapt to and mitigate the effects of a changing climate; support state greenhouse gas emission reduction requirements and state vehicle miles traveled goals; build resilient infrastructure; and nurture environmental, economic, and human health.”

This bill adds a new climate change and natural hazards resiliency element to comprehensive planning under the GMA for the following counties and cities within those counties – counties west of the crest of the Cascades that OFM estimates had more than 100,000 residents in 2019, and counties east of the crest  with an estimated population of more than 500,000 residents; counties east of the crest with an estimated population of more than 200,000 residents in 2019 and an unincorporated population of less than 40,000; and counties east of the crest with an estimated population of more than 90,000 residents and an unincorporated population of less than 15,000.

The Department of Commerce, in consultation with several other agencies, is to develop an baseline estimate from 2017 data of the share of the State’s transportation and land use greenhouse gas emissions from those emissions in the regions in which multiple counties subject to the act plan together through formal structures, and for each remaining city and county. Then the Department is to calculate the proportional share of reductions that each county or multicounty region would need to acheive for the state to reach its 2035 and 2050 emissions reductions targets.

The new element must be designed
(a) To result in reductions in greenhouse gas emissions generated by the transportation and land use systems within the planning jurisdiction consistent with that share of the State’s targeted reductions: and
(b) To result in reductions in per capita vehicle miles traveled consistent with the state transportation policy goals (in RCW 47.01.440); and
(c) To avoid, and build resiliency to, the worst impacts of climate change on people, property, and ecological systems through specific actions consistent with the best available science that institute adaptation or resiliency measures. (These may include actions designed to address natural hazards created or aggravated by climate change, including sea level rise, landslides, flooding, drought, heat, smoke, wildfire, and other effects of reasonably anticipated changes to temperature and precipitation.

This new part of the plans must be finalized no later than two years before  the comprehensive plan review and revision deadlines specified in RCW 36.70A.130. Other jurisdictions are encouraged to develop a climate change and natural hazards resiliency element in their planning, whether or not they’re doing it under the GMA.

As part of its technical assistance program, the Department of Commerce is to develop a model climate change and natural hazards  resiliency plan element that may be used by counties, cities, and multiple county planning regions for developing and implementing climate change and natural hazards resiliency plans and policies. Counties and cities that adopt this element are to treated as in compliance with the GMA’s requirements until January 1st, 2029.  A review and update of comprehensive plans must take place by June 30th 2025. If they occur before June 30th, 2029, adoption of the model plan element, development regulations in accordance with it, changes in countywide policies in accordance with it that affect the fiscal impact analysis required by the GMA, and the adoption of a regional emissions and vehicle miles reduction plan by a regional transportation planning organization to address the reductions required by the new element are not subject to appeal. (The comprehensive plan of each county or city would now be required to be consistent with these regional transportation plans.)

Regional transportation organizations including at least one jurisdiction the act applies to would be required to adopt a regional emission and vehicle miles reduction plan addressing all their member jurisdictions implementing the goals for reducing annual per capita vehicle miles traveled; and reducing aggregate greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector according to the share of reductions assigned to them by the Department of Commerce.

HB2676

HB2676 – Minimum requirements for testing autonomous vehicles in the Department of Transportation’s pilot program.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Kloba (D; 1st District; Bothell) (Co-sponsors Boehnke, and Hudgins)
Current status – Referred to the Governor for signature.
In the House (Passed)
Referred to the House Committee on Transportation. Had a hearing February 10th; passed out of committee with a minor clarifying amendment February 11th. Referred to Rules. Replaced with a striker by the prime sponsor on the floor and passed by the House February 19th. House concurred with Senate amendment March 10th.

In the Senate – (Passed)
Referred to the Senate Committee on Transportation; had a hearing February 25th. Amended and passed out of committee March 2nd. Referred to Rules. Passed the Senate March 6th, with a floor amendment making minor adjustments to reporting requirements. Referred to the House for concurrence.
Next step would be – Signature by the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6659 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
The striker in the House moves the effective date back a year to 2021, requires written advance notice to law enforcement for the area where testing will occur, and makes some small adjustments reducing the reporting requirements which are summarized by staff at the end.

The amendments in the Senate Transportation Committee make minor changes to the requirements about advance notification of testing, shift the date by which umbrella insurance coverage is required to 90 days after the end of the session, and narrow the requirements for reporting of problems to collisions and moving violations when the vehicle is in autonomous mode.

Summary –
The bill requires an insurance policy covering at least five million dollars per occurrence for bodily injury, death, or property damage for vehicles being tested under the Department of Transportation’s autonomous vehicle self-certification testing pilot program.

Organizations testing  autonomous vehicles have to provide the Department with contact information,  the local jurisdictions where testing is planned, the vehicle identification numbers, and proof of an insurance policy that meets the requirements. They must notify the department about any traffic incidents and any traffic infractions involving an autonomous motor vehicle within ten days, and about any disengagements of the autonomous driving system system that are made to avoid a possible traffic incident. The information has to include whether the autonomous driving system was operating the vehicle at the time of or immediately before the traffic incident or infraction, and details about any traffic incidents including any loss of life, injury, or property damage that resulted from them.

The bill authorizes the Department to charge a fee to cover the program’s administrative costs, and the Department’s to provide an annual update to the Legislature’s transportation committees summarizing the reported information.

HB2667

HB2667 – Amends the residential energy code to prioritize reducing construction costs rather than increasing energy efficiency.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Chapman (D; 24th District; Clallam County) (Co-Sponsors Maycumber, Tharinger, Hoff, Vick, Blake, Dufault, Van Werven, Barkis, Eslick, Springer, Kretz, and Schmick)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Local Government January 29th. Failed to make it out of committee by 2020 cutoff; dead bill.
Next step would be –
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6681 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Summary –
The bill amends the process for developing the residential energy code to prioritize reducing construction costs rather than increasing energy efficiency. It removes the State Building Code Council’s energy efficiency code design standards. It shifts from authorizing the Council to amend the residential energy code to increase efficiency to authorizing amending it to reduce construction costs. It delays implementation of the 2018 residential energy code, and requires the Council to review and amend that by 2021, specifying that the purpose of the review must be reducing construction costs and providing the least burdensome alternatives for compliance, and that the Council may not increase, but may decrease, the energy efficiency requirements of the 2018 code.

It leaves the current legislation for the non-residential energy code in place.

HB2688

HB2688 – Expands transportation policy goals; requires evaluating projects using performance metrics for the goals before the Legislature considers them.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Shewmake (D; 42nd District; Whatcom County)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Transportation, January 22nd.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6398 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Summary –
The bill revises and expands the current list of policy goals for the State’s transportation system. Under the bill, public investments in transportation would be supposed to support the achievement of:

(a) Accessibility: To improve affordable access to the places and goods Washington residents, organizations, and businesses need to live, work, study, play, and pray;
(b) Safety: To provide for and improve the safety and security of transportation users, the transportation system, and anyone interacting with the system;
(c) Environment and climate: To enhance the quality of life through transportation investments that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, water pollution, and toxics, promote energy conservation, and protect lands and waterways;
(d) Health and resilience: To promote healthy people and communities through pollution-free transportation, multimodal transportation, integrated land use and transportation projects, clean active transportation, and appropriate infrastructure;
(e) Equity and environmental justice: To eliminate historic and persistent barriers and prioritize investments meeting the goals in this section for highly impacted communities and vulnerable populations, which includes direct inclusion in decision making;
(f) Preservation: To maintain, preserve, and extend the life and utility of prior transportation systems and service investments that meet current and future needs and goals; and
(g) Economic vitality: To promote and develop transportation systems that support and enhance affordability, access to opportunity, and good jobs.

(These changes drop a section on increasing mobility and reducing congestion; add the sections about accessibility, health and resilience, and equity and environmental justice; and revise the language of the other sections in a variety of ways, placing more emphasis on progressive goals like affordability, good jobs, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution.)

The bill also requires projects and any reductions in projects to be evaluated on specified performance metrics for each of these goals, and to meet a performance threshold to be established by the Department of Transportation, before their inclusion in a budget authorization or their consideration by the Legislature. The evaluation process is to include representatives from the active transportation division, the public transportation division, the multimodal planning division, and the ferries, in conjunction with the Department of Ecology, the Interagency Council on Health Disparities, the Department of Health and the Department of Commerce, and is to include a public input process that is inclusive of vulnerable populations in highly impacted communities, as identified by the department of Health. The analysis is to be published on the Department’s website.

There are several pages of metrics which you can find on the last pages of the bill.

HB2550

HB2550 – Makes achievement of net ecological gain in environmental, land use, and development laws the State’s policy.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Lekanoff (D; 40th District; San Juan Islands and Anacortes) (Co-Sponsors Shewmake, Kloba, Lekanoff, Callan, Ramel, and Pollet)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy January 28th. A much less ambitious substitute bill passed out of committee February 4th. Had a hearing in the House Committee on Appropriations February 8th; did not pass out of Appropriations by the cutoff for finance committees; dead bill.
Next step would be –
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
The substitute retains the requirement for a report on the issue, and drops everything else. (It also rewrites the definition of “net ecological gain”, but I don’t think the changes are substantive.)

Summary –
The bill says it’s the policy of the state that the laws in the Shoreline Management Act, the Growth Management Act, the Model Toxics Control Act, and the section of the code governing construction projects in the waters of the State result in the achievement of net ecological gain, except where otherwise specified in statute. Net ecological gain is defined as a standard for a project, policy, plan, or activity in which the impacts on ecological integrity caused by the development are outweighed enough by measures taken to avoid and minimize the impacts, undertake site restoration, and compensate for any remaining impacts so that the gains exceed the losses.

The measures are to be applied according to a mitigation hierarchy, in the following order – first avoiding impacts; then minimizing unavoidable ones; then rehabilitating or restoring sites; and then offsetting remaining impacts through positive management interventions such as restoration of other degraded habitat, averted risks to habitats or ecosystems, and protection of areas where there is imminent or projected loss of ecological integrity. Measures to compensate for or pay damages for loss of ecological integrity caused by a project, policy, plan, or activity that falls short of achieving net ecological gain are the final, least acceptable stage. Agencies that have the authority to establish a standard of ecological or habitat protection or are not otherwise bound to a different standard of ecological protectiveness would be required to use these.

The Office of Financial Management would be required to report to the Legislature assessing how to incorporate this standard into the State’s land use, development, and environmental laws and rules, addressing each of those where the existing standard is less protective of ecological integrity than the new standards. The report would include an assessment of opportunities and challenges for local government implementation of the standard under different environmental, development, and land use laws; recommendations on funding, incentives, technical assistance, monitoring and other use of scientific data, and other considerations about integrating the standard into each environmental, development, and land use law or rule; recommendations on instances in which it could be achieved using voluntary or incentive-based programs and on where regulations would probably be required; and assessments of how applying this standard is likely to achieve substantial environmental or social co-benefits.

The bill includes activities regulated under the Puget Sound Water Quality Act in the definition of “infrastructure development” in the Aquatic Resources Mitigation Act. It would require the approval of an aquatic resources mitigation plan through a memorandum of agreement between the project proponent and either the Department of Ecology or the Department of Fish and Wildlife, or both, rather than having that be a possibility. (It also removes the provisions about mitigation for “non-infrastructure development”, for reasons that aren’t clear to me – perhaps because they were only intended to cover the Puget Sound Water Quality activities that are now included under the “infrastructure development, or perhaps because the new net ecological gain standards would cover them…)

HB2536

HB2536 – Changes the definition governing the patterns of land use and development in the rural element of counties’ comprehensive planning.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Maycumber (R; 7th District; Northeast counties)
Current status – Scheduled for a hearing in the House Committee on Energy and Environment February 4th at 3:30.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
Under the bill, the definition of “rural character” that governs the patterns of land use and development for the rural element in counties’ comprehensive plans in the Growth Management Act would be amended. The new version would be:

“Rural character” refers to the patterns of land use and development established by a county in the rural element of its comprehensive plan that must provide opportunities to support natural growth of families in the communities to prevent out-migration of people that were born in those communities. Rural character refers to patterns of land use and development that prevent high density development throughout the landscape. Land uses are adaptable with the use of land by wildlife and for fish and wildlife habitat, farming and farm-related industries, natural resource usage and manufacturing, and tourism. Rural character includes but is not limited to access to cell phone, broadband, and wireless technology; health care and wellness services for humans and animals; a variety of services and opportunities for children; markets, restaurants, and food services; industries to support agricultural tourism and outdoor recreation; and home-based economic opportunities that diversify rural economies.

HB2528

HB2528 – Recognizing contributions of forest products to the state’s climate response.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Ramos (D; 5th District; Issaquah)
Current status – Referred to the Governor for signature.
In the House – (Passed)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, & Natural Resources January 28th. A substitute passed out of committee February 4th. Referred to Appropriations February 6th; had a hearing there February 8th. A 2nd substitute passed out of Appropriations February 11th. Referred to Rules; passed the House February 16th. House concurred in the Senate’s amendments March 9th.

In the Senate – (Passed)
Referred to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks. Had a hearing on a proposed striker February 20th; amended and passed out of committee that day. Referred to Ways and Means; had a hearing there on February 28th. Significantly amended and passed out of committee March 2nd; referred to Rules. Passed the Senate March 5th; returned to the House for possible concurrence.
Next step would be – Signature by the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6355 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
The substitute adds aquatic lands to the current list of potential sequestration resources in carbon markets, and it adds promoting and investing “in industry sectors that act as sequesterers of carbon” to the short list of what must be done with any revenue the state gets from carbon markets. It adds supporting “other business sectors capable of sequestering and storing carbon” to the declaration of the State’s policy, and switches from language about supporting an “indivisible industrial sector” to supporting a “synergistic” one.

It no longer specifies that the policy of the State is to utilize net flux stock-change carbon accounting principles; now its policy would simply be to use principles consistent with established guidelines, “such as” the IPPC’s and the US national greenhouse gas inventory’s. It expands the possible recipients of grants for carbon sequestration to include nonprofit organizations, local governments, Indian tribes, and state agencies as well as private landowners, and it widens the list of projects that might be funded to include urban forests and “forestlands” rather than “working forests.” It removes the requirement that reforestation and afforestation projects receiving grants would have to remain forested for at least fifty years. Rather than requiring the Department of Commerce to simply promote the forest products industry, it would now require it “when doing so maintains or enhances the forest sector’s contribution to climate change mitigation,” but that doesn’t seem like a significant change, since the bill continues to maintain that the whole industry, as it currently exists, has to be supported in order to contribute.

The 2nd substitute, in Appropriations, removed the modified provision requiring Commerce to support the forest products industry.

The striker in the Senate committee excluded state trust lands from the provisions dedicating any future revenue from state forests’ participation in carbon markets to specified goals. It made the Department of Natural Resources responsible for managing the revenue account, in cooperation with the Conservation Commission and the Department of Agriculture, and the amendment dropped the entire section about the Department of Commerce. The amendment in Ways and Means eliminated the grants program and the potential study to determine how many acres in the state could be returned to forest.

Summary –
The bill adds language to the findings for the State’s current greenhouse gas legislation (RCW70.235) about sequestering carbon through sustainable forestry and forest products, and about supporting industry sectors that sequester carbon.

It adds a section to that legislation saying that the industrial forest sector is a significant net sequesterer of carbon, and that this value, which is only provided through the maintenance of “an intact and indivisible industrial sector,” is an integral component of the state’s efforts to mitigate carbon emissions. It says that satisfying the goals of that legislation “requires supporting, throughout all of state government, the economic vitality of the forest products sector.” It says it’s the policy of the state to support “the complete forest products sector,” including mills, pulp and paper, and the harvesting and transportation infrastructure that’s necessary to continue the rotational harvest cycle. It says it’s the policy of the state to utilize net flux stock-change carbon accounting principles consistent with the IPCC’s and the national greenhouse gas inventory. It concludes by saying that any state carbon programs must support these policies.

It creates a forest carbon reforestation and afforestation account to be used by the State Conservation Commission, less reasonable administrative costs, in funding competitive grants for private landowners and organizations that work with them to advance the state’s carbon sequestration goals. (Grants are to leverage the sequestration and storage benefits of the State’s investment, and can provide funding for reforestation after a wildfire for which the landowner was not responsible; funding for projects to return fallow land capable of supporting trees to working forest; and funding to plant sustainable forested buffers along nonforested fish bearing streams.) Recipients have to agree to maintain all the land in “forested uses” for a minimum of fifty years. The account can also be used for a study to estimate how many acres of deforested land in the state could be returned to working forests without having an effect on food production.

It adds actively promoting markets for the state’s forest products, including “any products of an indivisible industry sector necessary for the maintenance and expansion of the sector” to the list of the Department of Commerce’s responsibilities.

HB2518

HB2518 – Minimizing leaks in natural gas pipelines.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Shewmake (D; 42nd District; Whatcom County) (Co-sponsors Ybarra, Boehnke, Tarleton, Mead, Fitzgibbon, Lekanoff, Ramel, Callan, Peterson, Slatter, Davis, Doglio, Pollet, and Cody)
Current status –
In the House – Passed
Amended and passed the House Committee on Environment & Energy January 30th. Referred to Appropriations; had a hearing there on February 10th. A 2nd substitute passed out of Appropriations February 11th. Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor by the prime sponsor and passed by the House February 16th.

In the Senate – Passed
Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology. Had a hearing February 20th; passed out of committee February 25th, and referred to Rules. Passed by the Senate March 5th.
Next step would be – Signature by the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
(A House bill analysis is available.)

Comments –
The substitute requires the UTC to provide conditions for the recovery of interim costs between rate cases. It removes the list of values required in cost-benefit analyses, and reduces some reporting requirements. It exempts proprietary data, trade secrets, and information that would adversely affect public safety from public disclosure.

The 2nd substitute no longer counts emissions from intentional releases or operational practices as leaks that have to be included in the annual reports to the UTC, but it still requires the Commission to estimate emissions associated with operational practices along with those from leaks, apparently by using information that’s already being reported, or by ordering additional information from the companies. The floor amendment in the House made some minor adjustments in details.

Summary –
Requires the Utilities and Transportation Commission to begin a proceeding to increase
the certainty that utilities will recover the costs associated with measures approved by the commission that they undertake to reduce hazardous leaks and fugitive emissions from their gas pipelines.

Gas companies can submit proposed projects and changes to operational procedures to reduce hazardous leaks and nonhazardous fugitive releases, ranked according to risk, severity, and complexity to the UTC. These proposals must include a cost-effectiveness analysis and propose one of several ways of calculating a cap for the annual expenditures that would be recoverable through a mechanism to be approved by the commission. The cost-effectiveness analysis has to include: The value of the leaked gas; the cost of greenhouse gas emissions associated with that, calculated in accordance with a Federal standard which currently works out to $65/metric ton; the value of the reduction in risk from gas leaks; and the cost of the measures. The proposal must also address the expected impact to ratepayers and other factors the commission may require.

Beginning July 1, 2020, each gas pipeline company has to submit a report to the UTC on
the environmental and economic performance of its system, including all known leaks from transmission and distribution pipelines, and from all components, including pumps, valves, pipes, and pneumatic devices. Reports must include a sizable list of items, including a plan for fixing leaks, plus any others the UTC requires. The Commission is to produce an estimate of pipeline leakage in 1990, and an annual report for Ecology based on this current data, including the total volume of leaked gas and its market value; the volume and value of leaks that have not been fixed and of those the company does not intend to fix; and a projected timeline of the expected reductions from the plans submitted by gas companies. ( The report is also to review of opportunities and obstacles to reducing gas leakage statewide, including workforce availability, infrastructure investments, permitting, technical and legal obstacles, and any other  information the Commission decides is relevant.)

The bill specifies that the emissions from pipelines reported to the UTC by gas companies are to be included in the Department of Commerce’s biannual estimate of the State’s current greenhouse gas emissions.

HB2611

HB2611 – Study promoting circular bioeconomy throughout the state.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Duerr (D; 1st District; Bothell)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Innovation, Technology & Economic Development January 29th. Passed out of committee with a minor amendment February 4th; referred to Appropriations.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6435 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
Maybe the bill means that the report should identify potential ways to develop these things rather than actually doing it, since it seems unlikely that the University could do complete much research on new ways to produce high value chemicals of new methods for wastewater treatment in the two years of this study… (The bill doesn’t say anything about funding the study either.)

The committee amendment in the House added investigating the use of hardwood forest slash, mill wastes, and other residuals from sustainably managed forests to the study.

Summary –
The bill would direct the University of Washington to study ways to expand the use of renewable biological resources in the production of fuels, chemicals, and other materials in the State and report to the Legislature by July 2023. This would include:
(a) Developing new processes using biomass resources to produce high value chemicals and products, and high volume fuels in Washington, including processes to fractionate feedstocks, such as woody biomass;
(b) Developing biomass systems that provide effective water treatments, with an emphasis on cleaning municipal treatment wastewater and roadway stormwater;
(c) Identifying and assessing optimal locations throughout Washington state to site a biorefinery factory; and
(d) Identifying and analyze policy options that can promote the further development of a circular bioeconomy here.

HB2570

HB2570 – Requiring cities and counties to adopt zoning and development rules making it easier to build ADUs in their urban growth areas.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Gregerson (D; 33rd District; Kent)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy January 28th. Substitute bill passed out of committee February 4th; referred to Appropriations. Had a hearing there February 10th. An amended 2nd Substitute passed out of Appropriations February 11th. Referred to Rules. Failed to pass out of the House by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
There’s a staff summary of the changes in the substitute on page 5 of the House Bill Report on it.

In the amended 2nd substitute the mandatory ADU policies only apply in cities with at least 5,000 people and GMA-planning counties with at least 50,000. It eliminates the limits on impact plan review fees and allows requirements for owner occupancy for all ADUs.  It lets cities require an additional parking space for any ADUs more than a quarter mile from a major transit stop. It expands the exemption from challenges under the State Environmental Policy Act to any ADUs in an urban growth area.

Summary –
Requires cities with more than 2,500 residents and counties with more than 15,000 that are planning under the Growth Management Act to adopt various zoning and development regulations for ADUs in their urban growth areas by July 2021.

They must allow at least one ADU on all lots in zoning districts that allow single-family homes, though detached ADUs can’t be on lots under 3,500 sq ft. They have to achieve at least three of the following goals:
1. Allowing at least two ADUs on any lot on which there’s a single or multi-family residence.
2. Keeping the maximum gross floor requirement below 1,000 sq. ft.
3. Keeping maximum roof heights for ADUs above 24 feet.
4. Adopting pre-approved architectural plans for use under at least some building and permitting requirements.
5. Allowing detached ADUs on a lot line if it borders an alley.

They cannot require off-street parking for an ADU, require owner occupancy of the main building or the ADU, and can’t charge permitting, plan review or impact fees that are more than half those for a single-family residence. They can’t charge connection fees or capacity charges for attached ADUs. They can’t require a new separate utility connection except when site-specific technical, environmental, or financial considerations require that, and in those cases the charges have to be proportionate to the burden of the ADU on the water or sewer system; can’t exceed the reasonable cost of providing the service; and can’t be inconsistent with water availability requirements, water system plans, small water system management plans, or established policies adopted by the water or sewer utility.

It exempts these changes and actions implementing these regulations from challenges under the GMA or the State’s environmental impact law.

The bill also encourages, but doesn’t require:
1. Exempting them from impact fees and additional tree retention requirements,
2. Allowing them to be sold as condominiums,
3. Allowing fire department access to them by way of a public street of fire depatment approved access,
4. Having no more than 200 sq ft. as the minimum gross floor area requirement,
5. Allowing them to cover at least 60% of the rear yard,
6. Not requiring more setbacks than those for a single family home,
7. Not requiring them to look be in the same style as the main residence,
9. Not counting their floor area as part of the maximum allowed area of other residences on the lot.
10.Letting them be within five feet of a property line with the written permission of the current adjacent owner, and
11. Not requiring any particular location for entrances.

HB2586

HB2586 – Authorizes public utilities to support shifting homes and buildings from fossil fuels to electricity if it’s in the public interest.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Ramel (D; 40th District; San Juan Islands & Anacortes)
Current status – Had a hearing in  the House Committee on Environment and Energy January 27th. An amended substitute passed out of committee February 4th; referred to Rules. Failed to pass out of the House by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6496 is a companion bill in the Senate,

Comments –
Currently, these utilities can provide incentives or programs to support shifting if there’s a direct economic benefit for customers or for them.

The substitute bill drops the original’s list of things a utility “may consider” in a plan. Instead it requires a plan to identify options and program schedules for electrifying various end-uses or other energy sources, and it specifies that a utility must determine that the sum of the benefits of a plan equals or exceeds the sum of its costs. It lists some benefits that may be included and some costs that must be. (It also says the utility may “differentiate the level of benefits and costs accrued to highly impacted communities and vulnerable populations” in this process; perhaps that implies it might proceed with a plan for that set of customers even if benefits didn’t exceed costs for all of its customer base…) It also simplifies the definition of beneficial electrification, but as I read the change, it doesn’t have practical implications.

The amendments require a utility to request the input of any natural gas company with customers in its service area on the development of a beneficial electrification plan, and require the cost analysis for a plan to demonstrate that the electricity serving the increased load will have a lower greenhouse gas emissions profile than direct use, highly efficient, gas.

Summary –
This bill authorizes municipal utilities and PUDs to fund incentives and programs to shift homes and buildings from fossil fuels to electricity if they have developed a beneficial electrification plan that would provide a net benefit to the utility or customers by improving the management of the grid, reducing customer costs, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving air quality, or providing other public interest benefits.

Plans can include consideration of multiple options for electrifying various energy uses; the impact of beneficial electrification on the utility’s load and whether demand response or other load management opportunities are operationally appropriate; an assessment of conservation measures to offset load impacts; system reliability and distribution system efficiencies; potential greenhouse gas emission reductions; potential indoor and outdoor air quality benefits; and the overall benefits and costs of planned action, including the cost of greenhouse gas emissions calculated according to a Federal estimate which works out to $62/metric ton this year. Plans have to prioritize allocating benefits to vulnerable populations in their service areas.

Shift Zero has a flyer about the bill.

HB2515

HB2515 – Requires new cars and pickups sold or registered in the state to be powered by batteries or fuel cells, starting in 2030.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Macri (D; 43rd District; Seattle)
Current status – Scheduled for a hearing in the House Committee on Transportation February 10th at 1:30 PM.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
Starting with the 2030 models, new cars and pickups sold or registered in the state would have to be battery powered fully electric vehicles or fuel cell vehicles. (Emergency services vehicles would be exempted.) In consultation with a number of other state agencies that deal with transportation, the State Transportation Commission would develop a plan for meeting the requirement during a transition period beginning in 2021.

The plan would include:
(a) An estimate of the number of new and used electric vehicles and internal combustion engine vehicles registered in Washington each year during the transition;
(b) An estimate of the number, type, year of installation, and location profile of the charging stations needed for prompt, efficient, and cost-effective fueling of the vehicles during the transition period, and of the yearly investments required to build them;
(c) An analysis of the generation, transmission, and distribution upgrades and build-out needed and the investment required for those;
(d) An analysis comparing the estimated purchase prices of new electric vehicles and internal combustion vehicles during the transition;
(e) An analysis comparing their estimated total costs of ownership during the transition ;
(f) An analysis of yearly job gains and losses during the transition as a result of the 2030 requirement;
(g) An analysis of its effects on state transportation revenues, and recommendations as to alternative sources of revenue to replace the gas tax;
(h) An estimate of the yearly decreases in gasoline and diesel sales as a result of the requirement, and of the money that would have otherwise been spent elsewhere retained in Washington;
(i) An analysis of the impacts on equity for low-income persons, and strategies for maximizing that in implementing the requirement;
(j) An assessment of potential impacts on passenger vehicle operations and charging infrastructure from developments in autonomous and shared services; and
(k) Recommendations for effectively coordinating with neighboring provincial and state jurisdictions so that infrastructure investments are coordinated, accessible, and sufficient to ensure an enduring, cost-effective, and adaptive transition.

The plan is to be submitted to the legislative committees with jurisdiction over transportation issues, and updated in 2025 and 2028.

By January 1, 2024 the Transportation Commission is to develop rules consistent with this plan to implement the 2030 requirement. (In the process, it is to maximize equity and total benefits to the state while minimizing costs and risks; minimize the administrative burden of implementing and complying with the regulations; rely upon the best available economic and scientific information about existing and projected technology capabilities; consult with a list of stakeholders in order to minimize duplicative or inconsistent requirements; and revise and adopt rules to accelerate or otherwise facilitate the intent of this law.)

The Transportation Commission is to appoint a committee to advise it in developing the scoping plan and to inform the rule-making process, composed of representatives from communities in the state that are likely to experience the greatest benefits or disadvantages from the act act including rural communities, communities of color, and low-income communities. (Members are to be chosen from people nominated by community members and other stakeholders.)

It’s also to appoint an economic and technology advancement advisory committee to advise it on ways to facilitate investment in and implementation of technological research and development opportunities that will help in shifting to electric vehicles, including demonstration projects; on funding opportunities; and on developing partnerships and technology transfer opportunities.

It’s to consult on effective strategies and methods with other states, the federal government, and to use the recommendations of the advisory committee and of consultations
in developing the scoping plan and adopting rules.

HB2505

HB2505 – Revives B&O tax exemption for Bonneville funds utilities spend on low-income bill assistance or weatherization.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Robinson (D; 38th District; Everett and Marysville)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Finance.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6172 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
A similar exemption was created by the Legislature in 2010 and expired in June 2015. In the 2018 session, Senator Hobb’s SB6323 proposed reviving it through 2029, but the bill died in the Ways and Means Committee. (At that point, the fiscal note estimated that the bill would reduce the general fund by $600,000 in the first biennium, and $1.2 million per biennium going forward.)

Summary –
The bill creates a permanent exemption from the B&O tax for funds utilities receive from the Bonneville Power Administration as credits against contracts or for energy conservation or demand-side management, provided that they use that money for bill assistance or weatherization for low-income customers, and that it’s an addition to what they would be spending in any case.

HB2496

HB2496 – Providing for responsible environmental management of used batteries.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Mead (D; 44th District; Everett & Marysville)
Current status – Scheduled for a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 3 at 1:30 PM.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would make producers responsible for creating and funding a product stewardship system for dealing with all used batteries under twenty-five pounds (with a few exceptions). The bill would require users to drop off used batteries at “free, continuous, convenient, visible, and accessible” sites, and prohibit putting them in containers for mixed recycling, landfills, incinerators, or waste-to-energy plants. (The system would include education and outreach to encourage participation.) Batteries from producers who weren’t participating couldn’t be legally sold in the state.

Producers could set up one or more battery stewardship management organizations. An organization would have to have a plan approved by the Department of Ecology. Plans have to include performance goals for target collection rates and targets for the percentages of materials recovered through recycling. (They must collect and provide for the end-of-life management of batteries in an amount roughly equivalent to the national market share of the batteries of producers participating in the plan.)

There have to be collection sites for batteries under 12 pounds within fifteen miles for at least 95% of residents and at least one additional site in areas with over 30,000 people, as well as locations in all counties and tribal lands, and in special locations like parks and on islands. There have to be at least twenty-five collection sites in the state for hefty batteries between twelve and  twenty-five pounds, with reasonable geographic dispersion, including one in each county with more than 200,000 people.

Plans have to manage batteries by prioritizing prevention and waste reduction first, then reuse when that’s appropriate, and then recycling. They can only deal with batteries in other ways, like landfilling them, after a year, and after demonstrating to Ecology that these other higher priority options aren’t technologically feasible or economically practical.

Plans have to include various education and outreach activities  for consumers, retailers, and the operators of collection sites, and management organizations have to survey the public about their awareness of the requirements at the beginning of the program in 2024, and every five years after that, sharing the results with Ecology. They have to submit an annual report to Ecology, including an independent financial audit, data about battery collections and  recovered materials, and a variety of other information about the program, including steps for reducing the amount they haven’t recycled if that’s relevant.

After issuing a warning, Ecology can impose fines of up to $1,000 a day for violations of the law and of up to $10,000 a day for intentional, knowing, or negligent violations. In addition, management organizations can seek reimbursement from another battery stewardship organization that fails to deal with its batteries in an amount roughly equivalent to the national battery market share of its producers . In fact, organizations are authorized to sue producers who are not participating in an approved plan for their expenses in dealing with that producer’s batteries, and if there’s more than one management organization they can sue others that are not dealing with their producers’ share of the used batteries for their expenses in collecting and dealing with those.

Details –
Producers selling less than 5,000 batteries a year in the state don’t have to participate.
The bill requires batteries to have labels disclosing their chemistry and producer; it doesn’t cover batteries sealed in products.

Plans have to be reviewed and approved by the Department of Ecology, which is to collect a fee from producers to cover the cost of administering the program. It’s to maintain a public list of producers and brands that can be legally sold because they’re in the program.

The bill amends various sections of the Public Records Act about limits on the disclosure of financial, commercial and proprietary information to cover this program, and it authorizes the Pollution Control Hearings Board to deal with appeals.

HB2495

HB2470 – Lets utilities use new solid waste to energy plants for some “carbon-neutral” power under the Clean Energy Transformation Act.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Shewmake (D; 42nd District; Whatcom County)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Environment and Energy.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments
The findings say that nine of the State’s thirteen landfills, including King County’s, are expected to run out of space and close by 2040, and that waste-to-energy in King County would save $4 billion to $7 billion over fifty years and have lower greenhouse gas emissions than shipping the waste to a landfill by train.

Summary –
Last year’s Clean Energy Transformation Act (the 100% Clean Electricity bill) allowed utilities to provide up to 20% of the requirement for greenhouse gas neutral power after 2030 in a number of ways, including using power from a waste-to-energy plant constructed before 1992. (This meant the plant in Spokane.) This bill allows them to use power from new plants, under the same conditions. (The Department of Ecology and the Department of Commerce have to do a life-cycle analysis that concludes this would provide a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to best practice management of the waste in the jurisdiction through any other available methods, including waste reduction, recycling, composting, and minimizing the use of a landfill. The plants also have be operated in compliance with federal laws and regulations and meet state air quality standards.)

It also allows a utility to get up to 10% of its power from a plant meeting these conditions after 2045, when the law says 100% of the State’s electricity is supposed to come from nonemitting electric generation and renewable resources.

HB2486

HB2486 – Extends tax breaks for marine electric motors for another ten years.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Lekanoff (D; 40th District; San Juan Islands and Anacortes) (By request of the Governor)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Finance. Had a hearing February 6th. Did not pass out of committee by the cutoff for finance committees.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
New fully electric vessels with batteries that provide at least fifteen kilowatts of continuous power and outboard motors that meet that standard are currently exempted from the sales and use taxes until 2025. The bill would extend those exemptions for another ten years.

HB2472

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

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

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

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

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

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

HB2429

HB2429 – Bans manufacturing and distributing styrofoam containers, packing material and coolers.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Duerr (D; 1st District; Bothell)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Environment and Energy.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
(This is a companion bill to Senator Das’s SB6213.)

Comments –
There are other reasons for banning styrofoam, but really comparing the greenhouse gas emissions of using these items with those of the alternatives requires a complicated full life-cycle analysis. (HFCs have been often been used in the production of styrofoam, and they have a global warming potential between 12,000 and 14,800 times that of CO2; their use as propellants in Washington was banned by HB1112, and it banned some styrofoam board, but not containers.)

The only lifecycle comparison I found in a casual Google search was done as a project by a group of seniors in a UBC environmental studies projects class; for what it’s worth they concluded that the global warming effects of styrofoam takeout containers were a lot lower than those of ones made from plastic, corn-based biodegradeable plastic, and aluminum. If everything went to the landfill, paper containers were slightly better than styrofoam ones.

Summary –
The bill bans the sale and distribution of expanded polystyrene containers, packing material and coolers, starting July 1st, 2021. After two notifications of violations, food service operators and food packagers are subject to fines of up to $250/day for their third and subsequent violations.

Details –
There are some exceptions, including styrofoam containers for drugs and medical devices, and containers in which food’s been packaged and sealed before they’re delivered to a service establishment. The bill doesn’t apply to packaging in containers from out of state. It provides for outreach and education about the ban by the Department of Ecology, and for an appeals process.

HB2427

HB2427 – Adds addressing climate change to goals for regional planning processes.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Duerr (D; 1st District; Bothell) (Co-sponsors Springer, Shewmake, and Doglio)
Current status – Failed to pass out of committee by cutoff.
In the House –  (Passed)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy January 23rd. Substitute bill passed out of committee February 4th. Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor and passed by the House February 16th.

In the Senate –
Referred to the Senate Committee on Local Government; had a hearing February 25th.
Next step would be – Dead bill…
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6453 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
The substitute rewrites the new goals. It drops supporting the State’s vehicle miles traveled goals and taking steps to mitigate climate change, but retains the more or less equivalent goal of reducing emissions. It shifts the goal of nurturing environmental, economic, and human health to the narrower one of protecting people and property from natural hazards exacerbated by the changing climate.

The substitute only requires the new goals for counties required to do reviews and evaluations under the “Buildable Lands” program (that is, ones west of the Cascades that had over 150,000 residents in 1996), and for counties with over 300,000 people and cities within those. It adds that it’s the Legislature’s intent to have the changes adopted by these jurisdictions as part of the next scheduled update under the GMA.

The amendments on the House floor add language about the variable ability of different cities to achieve the goals of the bill through planning, and require a UW study of the heat island effects on human health, salmon and ecology of cities over 100,000 people.

Summary –
The Growth Management Act currently lists fourteen goals that are supposed to guide the development and adoption of comprehensive plans and development regulations for cities and counties planning with that framework. The bill adds a fifteenth, which says that they’re supposed to ensure that their own comprehensive plans and development regulations, and the regional policies, plans, and strategies for their countywide planning framework (under RCW 36.70A.210) and for their regional transportation planning (under RCW 47.80) “adapt to and mitigate the effects of a changing climate; support state greenhouse gas emission reduction requirements and state vehicle miles traveled goals; build resilient infrastructure; and nurture environmental, economic, and human health.”

HB2405

HB2405 – Authorizes counties to establish commercial property assessed clean energy financing programs.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Duerr (D; 1st District; Bothell)
Current status – Referred to the Governor for signature.
In the House – (Passed)
Amended by the sponsor in a minor way and passed out of the House Committee on Local Government January 24th. Referred to Appropriations; had a hearing there on Saturday February 8th. A 2nd substitute with major changes passed out of Appropriations February 11th; referred to Rules. Replaced on the floor with a striker by the prime sponsor and passed by the House February 18th. House concurred with the Senate amendments March 6th.

In the Senate – (Passed)
Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology; had a hearing February 25th. Replaced by a striker and voted out of committee February 27th; referred to Ways and Means. Had a hearing there on February 29th. Passed out of committee March 2nd, and referred to Rules. Passed by the Senate March 5th.
Next step would be – Signature by the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6222 is an identical companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
This bill reintroduces the most recent version of Representative Doglio’s HB1796, which she brought forward as a striker on the floor in the 2019 session, but which was never considered. (The striker shifted from authorizing municipalities to authorizing counties, and made a couple of further legal adjustments which are summarized by staff at the end of that version.

Property assessed clean energy financing programs make the repayment of a loan for an energy efficiency upgrade a lien on the property, which is repaid through the property tax billing process, and which stays as an obligation of the new owners if the building changes hands. Thirty states have established these programs. However, it isn’t clear that they’re legal in Washington, because our Constitution prohibits any gift of public funds to private parties.

ShiftZero, a coalition of green building organizations, has been promoting this idea, and has obtained a serious legal opinion which says that they would be legal if they were structured the way they are in Texas, because that relies entirely on private financing, rather than lending any state funds. (However, it isn’t clear whether the State using its property tax mechanism to implement a private loan and other details in this bill are constitutional here. Presumably, a court will settle those questions if the bill passes.) ShiftZero has a flyer about the bill.

The amendments in the House Local Government Committee added reducing or eliminating lead in water for drinking or cooking to the list of qualified projects, and would allow counties to narrow that list to focus on their climate action goals.

The 2nd substitute adopted in Appropriations removes allowing Commerce to establish a loan loss reserve/credit enhancement program, and removes a county’s responsibility to enforce delinquent assessments and C-PACER financing installment payments. (Presumably these steps help avoid the Constitutional issues. I think that means lenders would have to recover through a lien on the property if the borrower defaulted.) It also specifies that neither the state nor any county is required to use public funds to fund or repay the assessments authorized through a C-PACER program.

The House striker requires counties to establish a program, whether or not money’s appropriated for that, and limits them to doing that and recording the liens. It adds a list of items specifying  the details of Commerce’s responsibilities in administering the program, which are summarized by staff on the last page of the striker.

The changes in the Senate committee striker are summarized by staff on its last two pages. Among other things, it now bases the lien on the property owner entering into voluntary assessment agreement to repay the loan, lets Commerce contract out the administration of the program, lets it provide grants to counties to help them set up programs, and allows it to create a program guidebook including various standard legal forms which counties would be required to use.

Summary –
The bill authorizes counties to set up programs like this for energy efficiency, water conservation, renewable energy, and resiliency projects in agricultural, commercial, and industrial properties; and in multifamily properties with five or more units.

A county can impose fees on property owners who want to participate in order to pay for the reasonable costs of administering the program, provided the fees don’t exceed the municipality’s actual costs. It can contract with another county or entity to administer loans, or administer them in cooperation with other counties.

The Department of Commerce is also to set up or contract for the administration of a program to administer these loans, and a county could contract with Commerce to participate in that program. However, the county itself would remain responsible for collecting payments on a loan, and for foreclosing on the property if that became necessary.

If Commerce contracted with a third party to administer the statewide program, it would have to be done efficiently and transparently, including:

  • Making any services offered to property owners, such as estimating energy savings, overseeing project development, or evaluating alternative equipment installations, priced separately and open to purchase by the property owner from qualified third-party providers;
  • Making information about any properties joining the program available to all interested and qualifying third-party capital providers so the owners could receive impartial terms from them;
  • Disclosing any financial interest the administrator had in any of the services provided to property owners to the public;
  • Allowing financial underwriting and evaluation to be performed by capital providers, and;
  • Working in a collaborative process with capital providers and other stakeholders to develop a program guidebook and documents or forms.

If funding were appropriated, Commerce could set up a loan loss reserve or credit enhancement program to support financing of qualified projects.

Last session’s history
In 2019, a substitute bill passed out of the House Committee on Local Government. The various legal adjustments in the substitute are summarized on p. 6 of the House Bill Report. Representative Doglio introduced this striker on the floor, but it was never considered, and the bill was still in the house of origin by cutoff.

HB2389

HB2389 – Repeals the photovoltaic product stewardship program and requires a report on a comprehensive alternate.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Shewmake (D; 42nd District; Whatcom County)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy January 27th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
The findings say that the PV product stewardship program the Legislature created in 2017 through SB5939, which passed with large majorities in both houses, has “created uncertainty for manufacturers who may cease to sell panels in the state.” (The only problem it mentions is that the current system only applies to small system panels sold after July 2017, so it’s unclear what will happen to earlier panels and ones from larger systems; they apparently say they’re worried about ending up with two sets of requirements.)

Summary –
The bill would repeal the current photovoltaic module stewardship and takeback program.
It would require the Department of Ecology to appoint a stakeholders’ task force to develop recommendations by December 1, 2021 for financing and managing the recovery, reuse, and recycling of photovoltaic modules and their components (and for disposing of the remaining materials).

HB2379

HB2379 – Inventorying and incentivizing the reduction of potential greenhouse gas emissions from sulfur hexafluoride.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Smith (R; 10th District; Island County)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy, January 16th. Failed to make it out of committee by 2020 cutoff; dead bill.
Next step would be –
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is roughly 22,800 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat over one hundred years and can remain in the atmosphere for up to 3,200 years. It’s used the standard insulator in electrical transmission and distribution equipment, and as a refrigerant and a fire suppressor. (It’s also been used to fill tennis balls…)

Summary –
The bill adds assessing the volume of sulfur hexaflouride in the state’s gas-insulated electrical equipment, and an estimate of the potential greenhouse gas emissions from it to Commerce’s biannual report to the Legislature. It adds utilities’ investments in any projects that reduce these emissions during the equipment’s useful life and when retired from service to the list of energy transformation projects they can count as offsets in providing “carbon-neutral” power during the period between 2030 and 2045 when that’s required by the Clean Energy Transformation Act.

HB2343

HB2343 – Authorizes increasing neighborhood density and reducing parking requirements.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Fitzgibbon (D; 34th District; Vashon Island & NW Seattle) (Co-sponsors Frame, Macri, Doglio, Tharinger, Pollet)
Current status – Referred to the Governor for signature.
In the House – (Passed the House)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy January 16th. Substitute passed by the committee January 28th. Referred to Rules; passed by the House nearly unanimously February 16th. House concurred in the Senate amendments.

In the Senate – (Passed the Senate)
Referred to the Senate Committee on Housing Stability & Affordability; had a hearing February 24th. Replaced by a striker, significantly amended, and passed out of committee February 28th. Referred to Rules; passed the Senate March 3rd.
Next step would be – Signature by the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
There’s a House Bill Analysis.

Comments-
The substitute clarifies that the maximum parking limits for multi-family housing depend on having at least one route providing 15 minute transit service. (Having four routes with service once an hour, for example, doesn’t qualify.) It exempts counties as well as cities from this requirement under certain circumstances.

It shifts from exempting projects from appeals on aesthetic grounds if they’ve “undergone” design review to exempting them if they are “subject to” it, and makes the definition of what counts as “design review” a good deal more general. It modifies the definition of permanent supportive housing, which the GMA says cities may not prohibit in any areas zoned multi-family. The current language simply says this housing is intended to support “a person living with a disablility”. The new language says it “prioritizes people who need comprehensive support services to retain tenancy and utilizes admissions practices designed to use lower barriers to entry than would be typical for other subsidized or unsubsidized rental housing, especially related to rental history, criminal history, and personal behaviors. Permanent supportive housing is paired with on-site or off-site voluntary services designed to support a person living with a complex and disabling behavioral health or physical health condition who was experiencing homelessness or was at imminent risk of homelessness prior to moving into housing …”

The striker in the House committee adds a section that makes some changes to the ongoing reporting on housing supply and affordability by the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at the University of Washington that’s required by current law. Senator Das’s amendment added quadplexes, sixplexes, stacked flats, and townhouses to the recommendations for upzoning residential neighborhoods that are exempted from appeals. It also added the following items to the list of actions cities are encouraged to take:

(a) Adopting maximum allowable limits on SEPA exemptions for certain types of construction;
(b) Adopting standards for administrative approval of final plats;
(c) Authorizing administrative review of preliminary plats;
(d) Adopting other changes in permitting processes to make them more efficient for customers;
(e) Eliminating conditional use permits for all housing types except essential public facilities;
(f) Allowing off-street parking to compensate for lack of on-street parking when private roads are proposed or a parking demand study shows less parking is required;
(g) Developing local programs that offer financing, design, permitting, or construction for homeowners to build ADUs, with the option of imposing an affordability requirement for home ownership or renting the unit; and
(h) Developing programs that offer financing, design, permitting, or construction for homeowners to convert single-family homes into duplexes, triplexes, or quadplexes, with the option of imposing an affordability requirement for ownership or renting the unit.

Summary –
The bill revises various ways to authorize increased neighborhood residential density created in last session’s HB1923, and removes that bill’s restrictions on cities’ rules for permitting ADUs. HB1923 exempted any steps implementing those recommendations before April 1, 2021 (except adopting a sub-area plan) from administrative or judicial appeal under the State Environmental Policy Act or the Growth Management Act; the new bill extends that window to 2023, and removes analysis of impacts on parking from the requirements for SEPA environmental impact statements and checklists. It adds an exemption from appeals on aesthetic grounds if a project has “undergone” design review to HB1923’s exemption limiting the grounds for appeals based on transportation impacts.

Details –

The bill removes the prohibitions on parking requirements for ADUs, owner occupancy requirements, restrictions on their rental or separate sale, restrictions on their size below 1,000 sq ft, and on the imposition of any impact fees above the projected impact of the ADU. (It authorizes cities to encourage building ADUs by eliminating several of these restrictions instead.)

The bill increases HB1923’s limits on parking requirements for low-income housing within a quarter mile of a transit stop to include stops with service twice an hour as well as those with fifteen minute service, and now limits market-rate multi-family housing within a quarter mile of a transit stop with fifteen minute service to one parking space per bedroom or .75 space per unit.

It shifts from recommending authorizing a duplex, triplex, or courtyard apartment on “each parcel in one or more zoning districts that permit single family residences” to recommending authorizing them on “one or more parcels for which they are not currently authorized.” (This still allows a city to authorize them on each parcel if it chooses to, of course.)

It adds recommendations for creating one or more medium density zones with lots under 3,500 sq. ft, and single family residences under 1,200 sq. ft. It adds recommendations for authorizing ADUs in zones where they are currently prohibited, removing parking and owner occupancy requirements for them, and relaxing limits on their size.

It makes HB1923’s grants to cities planning to implement at least two of the recommendations available to cities under 20,000 people as well as larger ones.

HB2311

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HB2310

HB2310 – Reduces emissions from on-demand transportation.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Fitzgibbon (D; 34th District; Vashon Island & NW Seattle) (Co-sponsors Ramel, Macri, Doglio, Cody, Hudgins, Pollet)
Current status – Failed to pass out of committee by cutoff.
In the House – (Passed)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy January 14th. Substitute bill passed out of committee January 28th. Had a hearing in Appropriations February 8th; a 2nd Substitute with a minor amendment passed out of committee February 8th, and was referred to Rules February 11th. Passed the House February 16th.

In the Senate –
Referred to the Senate Committee on Transportation; had a hearing February 24th.
Next step would be – Dead bill…
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6399 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments – “Electrifying Ride-hailing: Part 1 – Six Reasons Why Uber and Lyft Must Go Electric”, by the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Research and Deputy Director for  the Clean Vehicles Program, discusses a number of recent pieces of research that provide pretty impressive reasons for doing this.

In the amended Second Substitute, the bill only applies to passenger services; the Department of Ecology is now to consult with the companies and report to the appropriate committees on how to reduce emissions from the food and goods delivery services the original covered.

It now specifies that Ecology ‘s baseline estimates should take account of periods when data on a vehicle’s movement may be recorded even though it’s not being driven as part of providing service for customers; of situations in which a car is being driven for more than one company, and of passenger-miles provided by zero-emissions transportation or transit that’s been offered through a company’s digital network.

It delays the date for implementing these plans for a year, until 2024, and allows Ecology to adjust the required date for submitting plans. It now requires a plan to outline the actions that the company will take to ensure that it will not increase negative financial outcomes for drivers. The department may now allow plans to get credit toward their targets by providing, funding, or financially supporting electrification infrastructure used to support these vehicles’ charging. The bill now specifies that Ecology can’t release any information that would be an invasion of privacy under current law, including the identification of passengers. It requires a report to the appropriate committees of the Legislature every two years on the reductions in emissions and vehicle miles achieved under these plans, and on the efficacy and sufficiency of incentives created by the Legislature to support shifting to zero emission vehicles.

Summary – Requires companies scheduling rides or consumer food or goods deliveries through digital technology such as webpages or smartphone apps to provide data to create a baseline of their emissions, and to reduce them over time. (The bill exempts a variety of traditional transportation services like taxis and limousines, however.)

Details :
By July 1st, 2021, the Department of Ecology is to create a state-wide baseline for the 2018 greenhouse gas emissions from these companies’ vehicles per customer mile and per food or goods delivery mile. By July 1st, 2022, it’s to adopt requirements, beginning in 2023, for reductions of those emissions; they’re to include annual targets and goals for increasing the percentage of passenger-miles traveled and customer food delivery-miles traveled using zero emission vehicles.

Beginning in January 2023, each company must submit a plan for making these reductions that are acceptable to Ecology. They’re to include ways to increase the proportion of their trips and the proportion of their vehicle miles made by zero emission vehicles, ways to decrease their average greenhouse gas emission rates, and ways to increase the proportion of passenger-miles traveled or customer food delivery-miles traveled relative to overall miles traveled. Their plans also have to consider incentives to encourage increasing the share of miles traveled by passengers whose walking, biking, or other active or zero emission modes of transportation are facilitated by using the companies’ vehicles, and incentives to increase the total miles they cover delivering food by walking, biking, or other zero emission transportation modes.

Ecology’s to do its best to have the rules minimize negative impacts on low-income and moderate-income drivers and to support providing clean mobility for low-income and moderate-income individuals. The rules for ride-hailing companies are to support the goals of the Growth Management Act. Ecology’s authorized to collect a fee from the companies to cover the expenses of administering the program.

HB2248

HB2248 – Enhances opportunities to participate in community solar projects.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Doglio (D; 22nd District; Thurston County)
Current status – Vetoed by the Governor.
In the House –  (Passed the House)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy January 16th. Replaced by a substitute, amended, and passed out of committee February 4th; referred to Appropriations. Had a hearing there February 10th; passed out of Appropriations February 11th. Referred to Rules; returned to Rules on February 26th. Replaced with a striker by the prime sponsor on the floor and passed out of the House February 27th. House concurred in Senate changes March 12th.

In the Senate – (Passed the Senate)
Referred to the Senate Committee on Ways and Means; had a hearing there on March 2nd. Replaced by a striker and voted out of committee March 9th. Referred to Rules. Passed by the Senate March 11th and returned to the House for consideration of concurrence in the changes.
Next step would be – Signature by the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
(SB6223 is a companion bill in the Senate.)

Comments –
There’s a staff summary of the changes on page 7 of the House Bill Report on the substitute.

Interestingly, Republican Representative DeBolt, from Lewis County, is a cosponsor of this bill. (Transalta plans to put a 180MW solar project on their reclaimed coal mine site near Centralia, in his district, to complement its nearby Skookumchuck wind project, and there’s now considerable local interest in developing other renewable energy projects.)

The amended House substitute provides participating utilities an additional credit against their  taxes each year of the larger of 0.0025% of their sales or $50,000.

There’s a staff summary of the changes made by the House striker on its last page. They include extending the enrollment period for the program by five years, to 2031; expanding potential subscribers to include tribal and public agencies serving low-income communities; creating a biennial cap of $5 million to spread the available funding out over time, distributed among utilities in proportion to their retail sales; and establishing a target cost of $3/watt for projects, which the WSU extension service administering the program can review and adjust each biennium. It also drops the net metering provisions.

There’s a staff summary of the changes made by the Senate Ways and Means striker on its last page. (It’s in the folder for the bill on the page with the committee materials for the meeting.) As I read the striker’s new language about compensation, on p. 19:
It limits the portion of the one-time initial payment for administrative costs to the startup costs for the qualifying subscribers rather than paying for all the costs of administering those memberships.
It now says that the other portion of the initial payment is “not to exceed” the cost of the proportion of the project providing benefits to qualifying subscribers rather than saying it’s to equal that.
It reintroduces net metering for community solar projects of up to 100 kWs behind the meter, but only for the customer being billed for that meter, rather than providing virtual net metering for all subscribers.
It says that “For all other community solar projects, compensation must be determined at a value set by the participating utility and paid to the administrator or subscribers according to the agreement between the project and the utility.”
It also requires the Energy Office to allocate the incentive funds among participating utilities in an equitable way, and clarifies a few other details.

Summary –
The bill extends the expiring community solar incentive program, retaining many of its provisions, but it would allow subscribers who invest in a project to get net metering payments from their share of it in the same way they would if the panels were on their own roofs. (With net metering, you get a credit at the retail rate on your bill each month for the electricity your share of the project produced, so it’s as if the utility was not charging you for that power, and you can carry that credit forward if you have a surplus and use it to reduce later bills. (The credits are only good until the end of each year, though, so you don’t want to subscribe for more power than you’ll use in that time.)

The bill would also extend the $0.10/kWh production incentive credit that the current program ended with to all the subscribers of projects that had at least 40% of their subscriptions from any combination of low-to-moderate-income households and low-to-moderate-income service providers like housing authorities and food banks. The incentives would last for eight years; subscribers could receive up to 50% of the cost of their share of the project from them. However, the bill would provide an additional $0.10/kWh incentive credit to the low-to-moderate-income households; they would also be eligible to get production incentives for up to 100% of their costs. (These are defined as customers with up to 115% of the household median in their area. Average household median income for the state is about $64,000, though it varies a lot.)  (In addition, the bill would also allow utilities that created community solar projects to meet requirements for energy assistance to low-income households under the Clean Energy Transformation Act by not charging for or discounting  part or all of the costs of those subscriptions; they could also retain the RECs associated with the production of power from these shares of a project.)

As I read the bill, service providers can subscribe to projects, but aren’t eligible for the additional incentive. One of these organizations has to certify the income status of each of the low-to-moderate income households subscribing, which sounds as if it may not be attractive to people in that category who aren’t currently depending on those services. Projects can’t be bigger than one thousand kilowatts; at least 40% of all the subscriptions have to be for less than twenty kilowatts; and no customer can subscribe to more than 40% of a project. (However, customers can subscribe to more than one project, but not for more than their total estimated annual usage, or for more capacity than 100 kW AC.)

Details –

The bill would stop certifying projects under the current incentive program at the end of June 2020. Projects could apply for precertification under the new program for six years, between the first of July 2020, and the end of June 2026. (They’d get another two years to complete them; but as I read the bill they wouldn’t be eligible for the incentives. The previous two sentences may not be right; I don’t think the bill’s current language is consistent about how the timetables for projects and incentives relate toward the end of the period.)

Utilities can currently receive annual tax credits (up to the greater of 1.5% of their 2014 sales or $250,000) for community solar production incentives if they choose to provide them; for projects under the new program that are certified by the end of June 2026, the bill increases that to the greater of 1.75% of sales or $300,000. Total incentives under the new program are capped at $20 million.