Category Archives: 1st House Hearing 2023

HB1832

HB1832 – Creating a program for a road use fee which vehicle owners could choose to pay instead of the gas tax.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Fey (D; 30th District; Tacoma) (Co-Sponsors Mena, Doglio, and Ramel – Ds)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Transportation, and had a hearing there at 1:30 PM on Tuesday February 21st; continued to noon on Thursday February 23rd.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would have the Department of Licensing create a program for a road use fee of 2.5¢/mile which the owners of plugin vehicles under 10,000 pounds could choose to pay instead of the gas tax, beginning in 2030. The bill would waive the $175 in additional registration fees those owners currently pay, for vehicles in the program. The annual road use fee would be reduced by the DOT’s estimate of any gas tax a plug-in hybrid paid during the year, and would be limited to the amount of the waived additional registration fees any of these vehicles would have been subject to if they were not in the program.

Owners would be able to choose between reporting miles driven by submitting periodic odometer readings or using one or more means of automated reporting the Department would develop. (The State Transportation Commission and the Department  would explore and report on the possibility of having reporting mechanisms drivers could choose to use built into vehicles by manufacturers.) The bill has various provisions for limiting the collection of information to what’s necessary to determine the fee, requiring the owner’s specific consent, providing data security, and limiting public disclosure of location information.

HB1619

HB1619 – Allows gas utilities to develop a wide range of renewable energy projects, and creates a tax exemption for renewable gas.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Fey (D; 17th District; Tacoma) (Co-Sponsors Duerr and Wylie – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 6th. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill? (May be NTIB…)
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
SB5659 adds some provisions to the ones in this bill.

Summary –
The bill would authorize gas companies to develop projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the combustion of natural gas delivered to in-state customers and from electricity generated from fossil fuels that’s used by retail electric customers in the state. They could seek to recover the cost of those investments in their rates through the UTC. Those investments might include residential and commercial rooftop solar, including battery storage and supplemental solar; community solar projects designed to offset carbon associated with the use of conventional natural gas; ground source heat pumps for district heating and targeted load reduction in new buildings used as a strategy for complying with the State’s cap and trade requirements; renewable gaseous fuels projects, including renewable natural gas and green electrolytic hydrogen, along with associated facility and pipeline infrastructure, upgrades, and improvements for industrial and heavy duty transportation; carbon capture and sequestration projects associated with natural gas projects and facilities; and research, development, and pilot efforts pertaining to nonemitting natural gas equipment and technologies.

The bill would also create a ten year sales and use tax exemption for machinery and equipment used for generating renewable natural gas or connecting it to a pipeline. (The exemption would also apply to labor and services for installing that.) Renewable natural gas would be defined as what’s generated from “the decomposition of organic material in landfills, wastewater treatment facilities, and anaerobic digesters.”

It would authorize gas companies to propose renewable natural gas programs for the UTC’s review. If approved, a company could supply renewable natural gas as part of the natural gas sold or delivered to their retail customers. The environmental attributes of that renewable natural gas would have to be retired using procedures established by the Commission, though it could also approve procedures for banking and transferring those. (The Commission could also approve the inclusion of other sources of gas if the gas was produced without consumption of fossil fuels. I think this probably includes green hydrogen.)

HB1194

HB1194– Workforce development for clean and renewable energy.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Klicker (R; 16th District; Walla Walla)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Postsecondary Education & Workforce  January 25th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would create a joint clean and renewable energy workforce training center to educate and train workers for the energy transition. It would establish an adjacent state-of-the-art visitor center with educational exhibits open to the general public, intended to inspire interest in clean energy careers, and to provide citizens with knowledge about the clean energy transition to help them participate in the public policy process. It would require these to be sited in the Tri-Cities area.

They would be operated and administered jointly as an education, training, and research center by Washington State University Tri-Cities and a joint operating agency. There would be a Board of Directors with thirteen voting members representing stakeholders and a non-voting chair appointed by the Governor. The Board would work with industry to develop internships, on-the-job training, research, and other opportunities providing undergraduate and graduate students in programs about clean and renewable with direct experience and training applicable to the industry. It would promote faculty collaboration with industry and sponsor at least one annual symposium on clean and renewable energy research and deployment in the state. It would encourage research addressing industry needs. It would work with partners to market career opportunities in clean and renewable energy in Washington, and to diversify the workforce.

The bill would impose a statewide clean energy workforce investment tax of $1 per megawatt hour on the production of solar or wind projects generating five megawatts or more. It would also allow counties to impose a local tax of up to $1 per megawatt hour for up to 30 years on the production from such facilities in the county or “immediately offshore”, if the tax were approved by a majority of the people voting in a special or general election. Revenue from the local tax could be used to support tourism and economic development; to mitigate any negative impacts to tourism from the siting of energy infrastructure; and for education, workforce, and skill center initiatives.

The bill doesn’t actually specify any uses for the statewide tax. It does repeal the current sales and use tax exemptions for the equipment, machinery and installation costs of clean energy facilities producing over 1 kilowatt. (Currently, these exempt between 25% and 100% of those expenses, depending on various conditions.) It specifies that the Legislature intends that an amount equal to the additional revenue from repealing those exemptions will be deposited into a new clean and renewable energy workforce capital account to be spent through appropriations. (Perhaps the revenue from the new statewide tax on production is intended to go into that account as well…)