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

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

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

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

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