Category Archives: Other

HB1768 – 2022

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

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy January 13th; substitute adopted January 20th. Passed by the House February 10th.

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

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

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.

SB6665

SB6665 – Extends the sales and use tax exemption for hog fuel to 2045.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Takko (D; 19th District; Longview) (Co-sponsors Short and Van De Wege)
Current status – …
Next step would be –
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2848 is a companion bill in the House.

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.

SB6645

SB6645 – Requires increasing recycled content in plastic beverage containers.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Das (D; 47th District; Kent) (Co-sponsors Carlyle; Wellman; Lovelett; Nguyen; Saldaña; Kuderer; Randall; Wilson, C.; Salomon; Liias)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology February 4th. Failed to make it out of committee by 2020 cutoff; dead bill.
Next step would be –
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2722 is a companion bill in the House.

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.

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 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.

SB6627

SB6627 – Reducing waste associated with non-compostable single-use food service products.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Stanford (D; 1st District; Bothell)
Current status – Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology. Failed to make it out of committee by 2020 cutoff; dead bill.
Next step would be –
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2656 is a companion bill in the House.

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.

SB6622

SB6622 – Retains the photovoltaic product stewardship program and requires a report on a comprehensive alternate.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Das (D; 47th District; Kent)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology January 22nd. Substitute passed out of committee February 6th; referred to Ways and Means.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
HB2389 proposes an almost identical task force but it repeals the current law rather than leaving it in place.

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.)

The House committee substitute merely changes the bill’s title to “Investigating a comprehensive, statewide photovoltaic module recovery, reuse, recycling, and end-of-life program,” instead of “Establishing…”

Summary –
The bill 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).

This bill adds reviewing programs in other countries to the new task force’s work, and adds several more specified members to it. It tidies up the language of the current photovoltaic module stewardship and takeback law, but it leaves that in place while the recommendations are being developed.

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

SB6432

SB6432 – Bans offshore oil projects and any oil or gas infrastructure on shorelines of statewide significance.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Rolfes (D; 23rd District; Bainbridge Island)
Current status –
In the Senate (Passed)
Amended and passed by the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology January 30th. Referred to the Senate Rules Committee. Amended by the prime sponsor on the floor and passed the Senate February 17th.

In the House –
Referred to the House Committee on Environment and Energy; had a hearing February 25th. Passed out of committee February 27th; referred to Rules.
Next step would be – Action by the Rules Committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments – The staff notes on the amendment say it clarifies the bill’s prohibition; I think the summary below is still right. (The sponsor’s amendment on the floor simply adjusted the bill’s descriptions of covered areas to match other statutory references.)

Summary –
The bill prohibits offshore drilling for oil or gas. It prohibits leasing state aquatic lands, tidelands, or submerged lands on the Pacific coast for purposes of oil or gas exploration, development, or production, or for infrastructure to handle extracted oil and gas transported through state waters off the coast. (The actual language in the bill is about “state waters associated with the outer continental shelf”; I’m not sure how much ocean this includes, but I think the definition in the bill extends to the 200 mile limit.)

It prohibits infrastructure for handling or transporting extracted gas and oil on the Shorelines Management Act’s shorelines of statewide significance.

SB6430

SB6430 – Establishing a statewide industrial waste coordination program.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Brown (R; 8th District; TriCities)
Current status – Vetoed by the Governor.
In the Senate – (Passed the Senate)
Passed out of the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology January 22nd. Referred to Ways and Means; Had a hearing there February 10th at 10:00 AM. Passed out of Ways and Means February 11th. Referred to Rules; passed the Senate unanimously February 17th.

In the House – (Passed the House)
Referred to the House Committee on Environment and Energy; had a hearing February 24th. Passed out of committee February 27th; referred to Appropriations. Passed out of there and referred to Rules March 2nd. Passed the House March 6th.
Next step would be – To the Governor for signature.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would establish a statewide industrial waste coordination program to support and coordinate existing collaborations where underutilized resources of one company, such as waste, by-products, residues, energy, water, logistics, capacity, expertise, equipment, and materials are used by another company, and would support new opportunities for such industrial symbiosis projects.

The program would be administered by the Department of Commerce to provide expertise, technical assistance, and best practices to support local industrial symbiosis projects; it would be managed regionally, with a dedicated facilitator and technical and administrative support for each region.

The program would be required to develop inventories of current industrial waste innovation; generate a material flow data collection system to capture and manage data on resource availability and potential synergies provided voluntarily; establish guidance and best practices for emerging local industrial resource hubs; identify access to capital in order to fund projects; develop economic and environmental performance metrics for industrial or commercial hubs; host workshops and connect regional businesses, governments, utilities, research institutions, and other organizations to identify opportunities for resource collaboration; assist organizations throughout the life cycle of projects, from identification of opportunities to full implementation; develop economic cluster initiatives to spur growth and innovation; and make any additional recommendations to the legislature in order to incentivize and facilitate industrial symbiosis.

If funds were appropriated, the program would be authorized to establish a program offering competitive grants for researching, developing, and deploying local waste coordination projects. Grants could be used for existing industrial symbiosis efforts by public or private organizations; emerging opportunities including projects arising from the industrial waste coordination program established by the act, conceptual work by public utilities on redirecting their wastes to productive use, or existing inventories or project concepts involving converting specific biobased wastes to renewable natural gas; research on product development using a specific waste flow; feasibility studies to evaluate potential biobased resources; or feasibility studies for publicly owned utilities evaluating shifting to multiutility operations or potential symbiotic connections with other regional businesses. Grants would be limited to under $500,000, would require a one-to-one match from nonstate funds, would have to be distributed geographically, and would be awarded considering factors such as time to implementation and scale of expected economic or environmental benefits.

The bill extends the current legislation exempting some financial, commercial, and proprietary information from public disclosure to cover this program.

SJM8018

SJM8018 – Joint memorial urging development of a Federal nuclear waste repository.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Sharon Brown (R; 8th District; Tri-Cities)
Current status – Passed by the  Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology January 30th. Referred to Rules. Failed to pass out of the Senate by cutoff. Placed in the Senate “X” file.
Next step would be – Dead bill…
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
Joint memorial requesting that Congress, the Department of Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency establish and develop a site for the permanent siting and development of a Federal nuclear waste repository.

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.

SB6435

SB6435 – Study promoting circular bioeconomy throughout the state.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Frockt (D; 46th District; Seattle, Kenmore, Lake Forest Park)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology January 22nd. Failed to make it out of committee by 2020 cutoff; dead bill.
Next step would be –
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2611 is a companion bill in the House.

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.)

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.

SB6306

SB6306 – Creates the Washington Soil Health Initiative.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Lilas (D; 21st District; Lynnwood)
Current status – Referred to the Governor for signature.
In the Senate –
Passed the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks January 23rd. Referred to Ways and Means; had a hearing there on February 3rd. Amended and passed out of Ways and Means February 4th. Referred to Rules February 6th. Passed the Senate unanimously February 17th.

In the House –
Referred to the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, & Natural Resources; had a hearing February 25th. Passed out of committee February 28th; referred to Appropriations.  Had a hearing there on February 29th, and was passed out of committee and referred to Rules on March 2nd. Passed the House March 6th.
Next step would be – Signature by the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
The amendments in Ways and Means simply specify that the program has to operate within the limits of its appropriated budget.

Summary –
The Initiative is to develop collaborative soil health research, education, demonstration projects; and to develop technical assistance activities to identify, promote, and implement soil health stewardship practices that are grounded in sound science. It would be jointly administered by the Department of Agriculture, the Conservation Commission, and Washington State. Its goals would include helping agricultural producers implement good soil health practices and improve farm profitability; supporting the increased nutritional benefits from healthy soils, and enhancing the environmental functions of the state’s soils, such as sequestering carbon and increasing water retention.

The University would have primary responsibility for establishing a regionally dispersed network of long-term agro-ecological research and extension demonstration sites, compiling and developing information on the nutritional effects of soil health, and developing a statewide soil health map to guide future public and private investment in the initiative.

The Department would be primarily responsible for developing a statewide “state of the soils” baseline assessment of soil health practices and indicators; developing accurate and cost-effective standard methods and tools for assessing soil health; and developing and promoting a marketing program focused on the benefits of products from healthy soils.

The Commission would have primary responsibility for providing outreach and education materials to help conservation districts, cooperative extension, and local governments raise awareness of the importance of soil health; providing technical support in coordination with WSU’s extension service to encourage and support farmers, ranchers, and land managers interested in implementing soil health practices; and training volunteers willing to take ongoing soil health measurements and submit them to the state soil health monitoring database.

These organizations are to collaborate in jointly appointing new members to the current Washington soil health advisory committee, and in convening, staffing, and developing agendas for its meetings. They’re to assess the needs of the program, to build their capacities and fill gaps to improve their reach and effectiveness; to prioritize in-state sourcing of needed resources; employ adaptive management in running the program; to develop equitable criteria for the awarding of soil health grants; and to submit a report to the Governor and the Legislature every two years including an assessment of progress in meeting the initiative’s goals and objectives, a work plan detailing any proposed legislation, budget requests or administrative rules, and a prioritized list of proposed actions needed to fulfill each collaborating agency’s responsibilities in the upcoming biennium.

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.

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.

SB6213

SB6213 – Bans manufacturing and distributing styrofoam containers, packing material and coolers.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Das (D; 47th District; Kent)
Current status – Failed to pass out of committee by cutoff.
In the Senate – (Passed)
Amended and passed by the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology January 30th. Referred to the Senate Committee on Ways and Means. Had a hearing there February 10th. A second substitute passed out of Ways and Means and was referred to Rules on February 11th. Amended on the floor and passed by the Senate February 17th.

In the House –
Referred to the House Committee on Environment and Energy; had a hearing February 25th.
Next step would be – Dead bill…
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2429 is the companion bill in the House.

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 made from petroleum, 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.

The amendments in the Committee on Environment include an intent section expecting that the new recycling development center and the current study of plastic packaging will provide better options for dealing with it, and declaring that the state intends to ban all styrofoam by 2025. They allowed the manufacture of the covered products (but continued to restrict their distribution and sale within the state.) They now also exempt coolers for shipping perishable commodities from a retail establishment; egg cartons for more than 12 eggs; and packaging for raw meats, seafood, and vegetables. They remove all the requirements for food service establishments, food packagers, and local health jurisdictions, presumably because banning the sale and distribution of these items means they won’t be available in the first place. They clarify that packing peanuts, but not other loose packing materials, have to be compostable after June 1, 2022. After January 1, 2021 the bill would preempt any local ordinances restricting the products it covers.

The amendments in Ways and Means expanded the exemptions to include fruit trays, coolers used for biological materials, and all egg cartons; expanded the definition of “manufacturer” to include importers and distributors, making them subject to the same penalties for violations, and raised the level of second and subsequent fines to up to $1,000; it would now preempt any local ordinances that had not been passed by June 1st of this year. The floor amendment  moves the date for banning covered products and packing peanuts back a year, to 2023.

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.

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).

SB6195

SB6195 – Authorizes $500 million in bonds to fund DNR’s 20-Year Forest Health Strategic Plan.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Braun (R; 20th District; Cowlitz & Lewis Counties)
Current status – Referred to the Senate Committee on Ways and Means. Had a hearing February 6th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

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 program by issuing up to $500 million in general obligation bonds over the next eight biennia.

SB6124

SB6124 – Develops K-12 field work experiences in environmental and sustainability education.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Hunt (D; 22nd District; Thurston County)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Early Learning & K-12 Education January 15th. Failed to make it out of committee by 2020 cutoff; dead bill.
Next step would be –
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
(There’s a Senate Bill Report.)
HB2811 is a companion bill in the House.

Comments –
The list of requirements for the “qualified non-profit” eligible for funding under the bill essentially specify some particular organization, apparently the Pacific Education Institute.

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…

SB5981

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HB1984

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

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

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

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

HB1985

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HB2009

HB2009 – Revises Senate environmental justice bill.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Reeves (D, 30th District, Federal Way)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on State Government and Tribal Relations on February 15th. Passed out of committee February 20th, and referred to Appropriations. Pulled directly from Appropriations to the floor, replaced by a striker, and passed just before cutoff April 17th 2019. Returned by the Senate to House Rules Committee for third reading. Reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session. Now in the House Rules “X” file.
Next step would be – Action by the House Rules Committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
This bill rewrites and revises SB5489.

Comments –
SB5489’s Republican opponents in the Senate proposed 30 amendments to the bill when it came to the floor on the last day on which a bill from the opposite house could be passed before cutoff, effectively preventing a final vote there. In response, the House pulled this version directly from committee and passed it. It now will need concurrence by the Senate.

The striker’s provisions are summarized on its last two pages. (There’s one weird thing about its drafting; it now says that the foundation of the bill, the cumulative impact analysis that agencies are supposed to rely on, means an “analysis tool…” rather than the analysis done with that tool.)

Compared to the version that passed the Senate, it expands the task force by adding four legislators, the owner of a minority owned small business in an impacted area and a member from a mid-sized economic development organization representing business interests appointed by the Governor, and someone representing statewide agricultural interests appointed by the Commissioner of Public Lands. It specifies that the task force may consider tribal exposure scenarios, Federal SuperFund sites, and State Toxics Control sites in determining impacted communities. It adds two items to the task force’s work load – a report on best practices for evaluating potential displacements of residents and increases in environmental burdens during local governments’ comprehensive planning, and recommendations for addressing the equity implications of the effects of the historical application of Federal and State environmental and land use regulations on rural communities. It drops the recommendations for including analysis of the distribution of environmental burdens across population groups in SEPA evaluations and the methods for incorporating the precautionary principle in decision making from the work to be done if time allowed. It adds a preliminary report on uncompleted tasks and additional resources needed, and requires agencies to report on the adoption of any “rules, policies, or guidelines related to the cumulative impact analysis” to appropriate legislative committees rather than just to the Interagency Council on Health Disparities.

It drops the phrase that said agencies shall adopt the cumulative impact analysis “with any needed modifications,” and flatly says that their rules, policies, and guidelines must be consistent with the task force’s guideline unless they provide a compelling reason to deviate from them, which they must report to the Council and appropriate committees. It says the bill’s null and void if specific funding for it isn’t appropriated this session.

Summary –

The bill keeps SB5489’s intent section, and revises a lot of its prose, while keeping many of its actual provisions.

However, it makes significant changes in the composition of the powerful task force that both versions set up to create rules for state agencies about defining and implementing environmental justice. It now has the Governor appoint the representative of a statewide environmental justice organization to co-chair the task force, rather than having that person be “a representative of statewide environmental justice interests.” (That organization is presumably Front & Centered, the bill’s creator.) It replaces four representatives living in communities with high levels of pollution with three members from some currently unspecified “organization” appointed by the co-chairs with diversity in mind. It reduces the task force’s size, dropping a tribal leader; the representatives of labor, of business, and of statewide environmental interests; and the potential representatives from each of any other agencies the Governor might add. (Since there are still representatives from eight agencies on the task force, the Governor’s appointees would have a clear majority in this revised group.)

It also changes the central definition of “environmental justice” from “fair treatment and [a] right … to have access to a safe, healthy environment” to the “fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people … with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” (That is, it’s now about due process, not outcomes.)

Details –
It allows the task force to consider factors in addition to the UW’s specified analyses in its guidance to agencies on designating “highly impacted communities,” and adds recommendations for how to integrate the distribution of environmental burdens across population groups into evaluations under the State’s Environmental Policy Act to the task force’s work.

This bill narrows the agencies required to use “all practicable means and measures to promote environmental justice and fair treatment” from all agencies to those on the task force. It continues to require agencies to conduct cumulative impact analyses, but now says they “may” rather than “shall” “issue policies… and adopt rules …to identify highly impacted communities, create target environmental health standards, and prioritize highly impacted communities … in the development, adoption, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, policies, and funding decisions.” It eliminates requiring agencies to review their programs, plans and policies every five years to ensure they’re promoting the reduction of disproportionate environmental burdens and the attainment of the health targets.

The bill also makes specific provisions for staffing and funding, which aren’t in the Senate bill.

HB1443

HB1443 – Extends lowered B&O tax rate to include mass timber products.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Chapman (D, 24th District, Clallam County)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, & Natural Resources February 6th. Passed out of that committee February 13th; referred to Finance. Reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing in the Finance Committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5467 was an identical companion bill in the Senate; it’s now dead – in the Senate X file.

Summary –

Mass timber panels (which are also called cross-laminated timber) can replace a most of the steel and concrete in large buildings, avoiding the emissions from producing those and sequestering the carbon from the trees for years.

The bill extends the current lower business and occupation tax rate for timber and wood products to apply to mass timber. (It’s 0.2904 percent rather than 0.484 percent until 2024)

SB5747

SB5747 – Requires a report on ways to expand the use of solid waste-to-energy plants.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Fortunato (D; 31st District; Auburn)
Current status – Referred to Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology. Still in committee by 2019 cutoff; reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session. Failed to make it out of committee by 2020 cutoff; dead bill.
Next step would be –
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
Requires the Department of Ecology and the Utilities and Transportation Commission to submit a jointly prepared report to the Legislature by the end of 2019 examining opportunities, and making recommendations, for expanding the use of waste-to-energy plants in Washington.

SB5629

SB5308 – Promoting small modular nuclear reactors.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Brown (R; 8th District; Tri-Cities)
Current status – Had a hearing before the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology on February 6th. Still in committee by 2019 cutoff; reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session. Failed to make it out of committee by 2020 cutoff; dead bill.
Next step would be –
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
Though the bill removes the provision in RCW 82.85.020(1)(b) that limits the sales and use tax deferral to two projects a year, RCW 82.85.040 still says the department may not approve applications for more than two projects a year. (Maybe this is intended to mean that the Department can now approve an unlimited number of deferrals, but only two from a given applicant…)

Summary –

Small modular reactors (SMRs) under the bill have an output no greater than 300 MW, and are designed to be manufactured in a factory and transported to sites. The bill specifies that the clean energy technology innovation to be supported in the State’s clean energy strategy includes SMRs. It exempts their manufacture and sale, and the manufacture and sale of any components, from the tax on manufacturing (0.484 percent), the tax on wholesale sales (0.484 percent), the State tax on retail sales (0.471 percent), and any other business and occupation taxes. (They must develop an apprenticeship, training, or workforce development program in cooperation with a public institution of higher education to be eligible for the tax breaks.) The bill exempts these tax breaks from expiring after ten years.

It expands the current provisions for deferring the payment of state and local sales and use taxes on the first $10 million of the costs of constructing, expanding, or renovating the facilities of manufacturing businesses, removing the limitation of the deferral to two projects a year and the requirement that they be located on different sides of the state. (It also specifies that projects that utilize or produce small modular reactors or other green technologies are encouraged.) The bill converts the current pilot program for directing these deferred taxes into supporting workforce training for manufacturing businesses when they are repaid into a permanent one.

These deferred taxes are to be paid in equal parts over ten years, without any adjustment for inflation, beginning five years after the completion of a project. The bill would add four years to the lifespan of this tax break, which would now expire in 2030.

Details –
It declares that the Legislature intends to extend these tax exemptions if a review finds that the number of jobs in the SMR industry in the state has increased by at least 10%. (This should be an easy standard to meet, since there are almost none now.)

SB5489

SB5489 – Requires state agencies to use all practical means and measures to promote environmental justice.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Saldaña (D; 37th District; Seattle)
Current status – Returned to Senate Rules 3rd Reading by the House; reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session. Failed to pass out of the Senate by cutoff; placed in the “X” file.
Next step would be – Dead bill…
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2009 was an extensive revision and rewrite of the original version of this bill; the second substitute Senate bill is now pretty close to the House version.

2019 Legislative History –
In the Senate (Passed)
Had a hearing on a proposed substitute in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology February 13th. Passed out of committee and referred to Ways and Means February 19th. Had a hearing there February 27th; a second substitute bill was further amended and passed out of Ways & Means February 28th. Placed on 2nd reading by Rules Committee March 5th. Passed the Senate March 8th.
In the House
Referred to the House Committee on State Government and Tribal Relations. Had a hearing March 19th; replaced by a striker which passed out of committee March 26th. Referred to Appropriations; had a hearing April 6th. Amended and passed out of committee April 8th. Referred to Rules; placed on 2nd reading April 10th. Still in Rules by the end of 2019 session; Returned to Senate Rules 3rd Reading by the House.

Comments –
In the House
The changes in the House striker are summarized on its last page. It shifts power back toward the task force, saying that agencies “must adopt” the use of the cumulative impact analysis, and “must adopt” it consistent with the task force’s guidance on how to use it if there is any. It specifies the use of the Department of Health’s (DOH) Washington Tracking Network for the cumulative impact analysis, rather than the UW study, and adds some reporting about needs for funding and uncompleted tasks.

Amendments in House Appropriations require the use of tribal exposure scenarios as a factor in the analysis of cumulative impact areas, have the report include best practices for local governments to include environmental justice principles in comprehensive planning under the GMA, and make the bill null and void if it isn’t funded in this year’s budget.

In the Senate
Second Substitute Senate version 
This aligned the bill with the significant changes in HB2009, though it’s different in some minor ways.

Like HB2009, it now changes the central definition of “environmental justice” from “fair treatment and [a] right … to have access to a safe, healthy environment” to the “fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people … with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” (That is, it’s now about due process, not outcomes.)

Like HB2009, it changes the composition and power of the task force that they set up. That group no longer creates rules about defining and implementing environmental justice that state agencies must adopt. It develops models, methods, best practices, and recommendations in the House version. In the House version there are “model rules for agency adoption”; in the Senate version the task force creates “guidance for state agencies.” It also says that “if time and resources permit” the task force should do the work on equity analyses, gaps in research, utilizing the precautionary approach, and cataloging and cross-referencing all the state agencies’ research and data about people’s health and environment that are required in HB2009.

The House bill has the Governor appoint the representative of a statewide environmental justice organization to co-chair the task force. (That unspecified organization is presumably Front & Centered, the bill’s creator.) The Senate has him appoint ” a member who is well-informed on the principles of environmental justice and with expertise in statewide environmental justice issues.” They both replace four representatives living in communities with high levels of pollution with three members from some currently unspecified “organization” appointed by the co-chairs with diversity in mind. They reduce the task force’s size by dropping a tribal leader; the representatives of labor, of business, and of statewide environmental interests; and the potential representatives from each of any other agencies the Governor might add. (Since there are still representatives from eight agencies on the task force, the Governor’s appointees would have a clear majority in this revised group.)

This substitute bill does not include HB2009’s provision about including environmental justice considerations in SEPA analyses.  Section 5 (1) uses somewhat different language than HB2009’s about the degree to which agencies are required to use the task force’s recommendations, but it isn’t clear to me if one of them gives the agencies more latitude than the other.

One amendment to the 2nd Substitute in Senate Ways & Means added back a tribal representative, one from business and one from labor, now appointed by the Governor.

Front and Centered has a flyer about the bill.

Summary of the original version –
Creates a task force to study and and report recommendations to the Legislature and the Governor on how to incorporate environmental justice principles into the ways state agencies operate. “Environmental justice” means that all people have the right to a safe and healthy environment; that no group of people should bear disproportionately high exposure to pollution or adverse human health or environmental impacts; and that all groups should have appropriate access to meaningful public participation in decisions that affect their environment.

Within sixty days of the task force’s report, Ecology is to provide uniform rules and guidelines for implementing the recommendations to all state agencies on the task force. The agencies must use cumulative impact analyses to identify highly impacted communities, create target environmental health standards for counties and census tracts all over the state, and prioritize highly impacted communities and their vulnerable populations in the development, adoption, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, policies, and funding decisions.

The “vulnerable populations” it covers are defined as communities that experience disproportionate cumulative risk from “environmental burdens due to adverse socioeconomic factors, including unemployment, high housing and transportation costs relative to income, access to food and health care, and linguistic isolation; and sensitivity factors, such as low birth weight and higher rates of hospitalization.” “Environmental burdens” include cumulative risks caused by historic and current exposure to conventional and toxic hazards; adverse environmental effects, including environmental conditions caused or made worse by contamination or pollution or that create vulnerabilities to climate impacts; and exposure to hazards made worse by changes in the climate.

Comments –
Though the bill currently says the task force must “discuss… draft rules for agencies”, the rest of it says it is to draft rules agencies must adopt, not just discuss some possible rules.

Details –
The bill specifies the membership of the task force, including representatives of at least eight state agencies; four representatives from different areas of the state who live in communities that are most significantly burdened by, and vulnerable to, high levels of pollution; and a number of other stakeholders. It would be co-chaired by a representative of statewide environmental justice interests and the executive director of the Governor’s interagency council on health disparities. It’s to hold at least four regional meetings in different parts of the state, and complete a report by July 31, 2020.

State agencies must review and revise their rules, programs, plans, and policies every five years to ensure they are promoting reductions in disproportionate environmental burdens and attainment of the environmental health targets the bill establishes, and the task force is to reconvene “five years after the adoption of the last rules to evaluate the findings of each department and update their findings and recommendations.”

The report must discuss:

  • Methods to increase public participation and engagement by providing meaningful opportunities for involvement to all people;
  • Draft rules for agency adoption regarding cumulative impact analyses that will identify highly impacted communities, based on analyses of vulnerable populations and environmental burdens conducted by the University of Washington’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. (These also include any census tracts that are fully or partly on tribal land.);
  • Methods for meaningfully consulting vulnerable populations in periodically evaluating and updating the designation of highly impacted communities and the cumulative impact analysis;
  • Methods for creating and implementing analyses to evaluate environmental justice, including but not limited to cumulative impact analyses, into all significant planning, decision making, and investments, including describing potential risks, benefits, and opportunities for these communities and populations;
  • Methods for prioritizing these communities and populations by identifying and, where legally and fiscally feasible, maximizing inspection, enforcement actions, investment of resources, planning, permitting, and public participation to reduce environmental health disparities and advance a healthy environment for all residents;
  • Methods for cataloging and cross-referencing current research and data for programs within all state agencies relating to the health and environment of people of all races, cultures, and income levels;
  • Methods for establishing a qualitative target environmental health level for each county or larger area, and a quantitative target at the census tract level or larger;
  • Recommended criteria for identifying and addressing gaps in current research and data collection to inform agency actions, refine cumulative impact methodology, and identify factors that may impede achieving environmental justice; and,
  • Methods for incorporating the precautionary approach to decision making, including permitting, to the extent allowed by law.

SB5576

SB5576 – Improving sustainability and climate science education.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Lynda Wilson (R; 17th District; Vancouver)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Early Learning & K-12 Education February 18th. Passed out of committee February 22nd. Referred to Ways and Means. Still in the house of origin by 2019 cutoff; reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session.
Next step would be –  Action by Ways and Means.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1496 is the identical companion bill in the House.

Comments –
There’s an article about the results of the climate education project that the Legislature funded last year in the Green Schools Catalyst Quarterly.

Summary –
The bill updates the label in the current list of topics that must be taught in public schools from “science with particular reference to the environment” to “science with special reference to the environmental and sustainability standards.” ((OSPI sets and revises these State standards for schools to describe what all students at different grade levels “should know and be able to do in the area of Environmental and Sustainability Education”.

If funding were made available, the bill would require OSPI to develop grants for community non-profits and educational service districts to develop plans for teacher education in next generation science standards, including climate science standards. Comprehensive and targeted comprehensive schools, and communities historically underserved by climate science education would get priority for these. In selecting applications and prioritizing grants, SPI could consider applicants’ previous success in developing teachers’ ability to help students understand climate science standards.

In this context, “climate science” means the ideas from various sciences, the integrating concepts, and the science and engineering practices in the standards that lead a student toward climate science literacy. “Climate science literacy” means understanding your influence on climate and its influence on individuals, society, and the environment. (A “climate-literate person” understands the essential principles of the climate system; knows how to assess scientifically credible information about climate; can communicate meaningfully about climate and climate change; and can make informed and responsible decisions about actions that might affect the climate.)

HB1496

HB1496 – Improving sustainability and climate science education.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Dolan (D; 22nd District; Olympia)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Education. Reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill updates the label in the current list of topics that must be taught in public schools from “science with particular reference to the environment” to “science with special reference to the environmental and sustainability standards.” ((OSPI sets and revises these State standards for schools to describe what all students at different grade levels “should know and be able to do in the area of Environmental and Sustainability Education”.

If funding were made available, the bill would require OSPI to develop grants for community non-profits and educational service districts to develop plans for teacher education in next generation science standards, including climate science standards. Comprehensive and targeted comprehensive schools, and communities historically underserved by climate science education would get priority for these. In selecting applications and prioritizing grants, SPI could consider applicants’ previous success in developing teachers’ ability to help students understand climate science standards.

In this context, “climate science” means the ideas from various sciences, the integrating concepts, and the science and engineering practices in the standards that lead a student toward climate science literacy. “Climate science literacy” means understanding your influence on climate and its influence on individuals, society, and the environment. (A “climate-literate person” understands the essential principles of the climate system; knows how to assess scientifically credible information about climate; can communicate meaningfully about climate and climate change; and can make informed and responsible decisions about actions that might affect the climate.)

SB5476

SB5476 – Protects established composting sites from being sued for creating a public nuisance.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Kuderer (D; 48th District; Bellevue)
Current status – Referred to Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks. Still in committee by 2019 cutoff; reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session. Failed to make it out of committee by cutoff; dead bill.
Next step would be –  Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1167 is an identical companion bill in the House.

Summary –
Currently, agriculture and forestry activities that are consistent with good practices in those fields, and were established before other surrounding activities (like neighboring housing developments), are protected from lawsuits claiming that they are creating a public nuisance because of things like smells or noise, unless they’re having a substantial negative effect on public health or safety.

The bill extends this protection to composting activities. (Composting must also be meeting city and county regulations to qualify for this protection.)

HB1167

HB1167 – Protects established composting sites from being sued for creating a public nuisance.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Walen (D, 48th District, Kirkland)
Current status – Had a hearing before the Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture & Natural Resources January 23rd. Reported out of committee February 6th; referred to Rules. Placed on 2nd reading February 28th. Referred to Rules 2 consideration March 21st. Reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session. Now in the House Rules “X” file.
Next step would be – Action by the Rules Committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
The House Bill Analysis is available here.

Summary –
Currently, agriculture and forestry activities that are consistent with good practices in those fields, and were established before other surrounding activities (like neighboring housing developments), are protected from lawsuits claiming that they are creating a public nuisance because of things like smells or noise, unless they’re having a substantial negative effect on public health or safety.

The bill extends this protection to composting activities. (Composting must also be meeting city and county regulations to qualify for this protection.)

SB5077

SB5077 – Prohibiting single-use plastic straws
Prime Sponsor – Senator Kuderer (D, 48th District, Bellevue)
Current status – Returned to the Senate Rules Committee at the end of the 2019 session. Reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session. Placed in the Senate “X” file February 24th.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

2019 Legislative History –
In the Senate (Passed) –
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology January 24th. Substitute bill passed out of committee February 14th. Referred to Rules for 2nd Reading. Passed by the Senate with minor amendment by prime sponsor March 4th.
In the House –
Referred to the House Committee on Environment and Energy. Had a hearing March 14th. Replaced by a striker, further amended, and passed out of committee April 1st. Referred to the Rules Committee. Returned to the Senate Rules Committee at the end of the 2019 session.

Comments: – It isn’t obvious that banning plastic straws will reduce greenhouse emissions, though it might, and that’s not the main point of the proposal in any case. (To decide whether or not it would you’d need a full life-cycle analysis of their use compared to that of paper straws, glass straws, bamboo straws, the new plastic covers Starbucks is introducing with lids that make it easier to drink from them, and so on…) This is equally true of the bills about banning plastic carryout bags (HB1205) and reducing the use of plastic packaging (HB1204).

The substitute bill dropped the prohibition on the sales and distribution of plastic straws, would keep restaurants from using them unless a customer asked for one, and made some other changes which are summarized on pp. 2-3 of the Senate Bill Report.

The changes in the House striker are summarized on its last page. It and the amendments made a number of minor adjustments to the rules, and increased the potential fines to $250/day for the third and subsequent violations and a maximum of $3,000 a year.

Details – Bans sale and distribution of all plastic straws as of July 30, 2020, including ones that are compostable, biodegradeable, and/or made from plant-based plastics. Creates a process for recommendations to Legislature about addressing the needs of health care facilities and disabled individuals and about avoiding unintended consequences. Imposes a fine of $25/day for violations after two warnings, with a maximum fine of $300.