Category Archives: In Rules – House of Origin – 2023

HB1381

HB1381 – Reporting on urban heat island effects on salmon, and awards for projects mitigating those.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Dye (R; 9th District; Southeast Washington) (Co-Sponsors Lekanoff & Pollet – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy January 23rd. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 16th. Referred to Appropriations, had a hearing there on February 21st, and passed out of committee February 21st. Referred to Rules. Returned to the House Committee on Environment and Energy for the 2024 Session.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
See also HB1166.

Summary –
The bill would require municipal governments in the most populated areas of the state, which operate under the NPDES Phase I stormwater permit, to monitor and report annually on the impact of urban heat island effects on the temperature of salmon-bearing waterbodies in their jurisdiction. Reports would have to include the amount of impervious surface and canopy coverage within the jurisdiction, as a percentage and overall, how those have changed since the issuance of the previous permit; the monthly median temperature of all waterbodies within the jurisdiction that have been designated as critical habitat for salmon, steelhead, or bull trout under the Endangered Species Act; how those have changed since the issuance of the previous permit; a narrative description of factors in addition to urban heat islands that may have had a measurable impact on those temperature in the report year; and a description of the Jurisdiction’s approach to reducing the impact of the urban heat island effect on its waterbodies.

Within three months after these annual report were submitted, Ecology would issue awards recognizing the jurisdictions whose work to address the urban heat island during the previous year best demonstrated innovation and achievement in a number of areas. There would be:
(1) An award for innovative urban forest conservation and sustainability programs designed to reduce power loads during peak heat and cold weather events, and documenting greenhouse gas emissions reductions, reduced stormwater runoff, and water quality improvements as a result of new urban forestry design and implemented practices;
(2) An award for the most effective vertical garden installation, or programs that produce significant adoption of vertical gardens, with focus on stormwater capture and use and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions due to reduced power demand;
(3) An award to recognize the innovative programs increasing the adoption of green roof technology, emphasizing stormwater runoff reductions, stormwater reuse, and local and sustainable fresh produce and fruit production in the most impacted areas of urban heat islands;
(4) An award for the newest and most innovative development of reflective roof technology, based on its effectiveness in reducing stormwater runoff temperature and reducing greenhouse gas emissions through lower energy usage;
(5) An award for the most innovative use of permeable pavement technology and its adoption in locations providing the most improvements in water quality needed to improve salmon habitat; and,
(6) An award for restoring streams from pipes and buried locations under the urban core to natural channels, restoring natural environments within urban canyons, and providing natural cooling and filtration of water within those streams.

Beginning in 2027, the Department, in consultation with Fish and Wildlife, could designate one or more jurisdictions as a “salmon-safe community” for that year, based on its achievements in reporting and monitoring complying with the letter and spirit of the bill; its objectively quantifiable progress in implementing the bill’s mitigation strategies  and its achievement of measurable gains toward salmon recovery in the waterbodies in its jurisdiction.

HB1427

HB1427 – Expanding utility net-metering programs.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Mena (D; 45th District; Kirkland) (Co-Sponsors Doglio, Ramel, Street, Berry, Duerr, Hackney, Reed, Fosse, Cortes, Lekanoff, and Peterson – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy January 24th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 9th. Referred to Rules. Returned to the House Committee on Environment and Energy for the 2024 Session.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Substitute –
There’s a summary by staff of the changes made in the substitute at the beginning of it.

Summary –
The bill would make public utility customers’ systems for generating power of up to 200 kilowatts AC on their own property eligible for net metering, doubling the current limit, and would make it available for private utility customers’ systems of up to 2 megawatts on their own property. (Utilities could also offer it for other systems if they chose to.) It would require offering it until June 2035, rather than June 2029, or until the total capacity of the included systems reached 12% of a utility’s peak demand in 1996, rather than 4%.

The bill would require utilities to enter into contracts covering the terms of their arrangements with customer-generators for at least 25 years, and to develop a standard rate or tariff schedule for them that’s expressed as a percentage of the utility’s retail rate. (I think this is intended to mean that these customers would get the current arrangements for net metering credits for at least the rough estimated life time of a solar system, but I’m not sure what this additional provision about a standard rate for them is intended to do, given the next to the last sentence of the next paragraph. My understanding is that a contract could include provisions for new rates after the requirement for admitting more customers to the program ended, including one rate for electricity used by the customer and a different rate for credited generation …)

Until the point at which they were no longer required to offer net metering, the rates and reimbursement for these customers would be determined by the provisions of the current net-metering law, which deducts any kilowatt hours the customer provided to the grid over the year from the ones the customer is billed for, effectively paying for that power at the current retail rate. (If the system produces more than the customer uses, though, the extra credits go to the utility; the bill would now require the utility to use those to reduce low-income customers’ bills.) A consumer-owned utility could develop a standard rate or tariff schedule to take effect after the point at which they were no longer required to offer net metering to new applicants, and private utilities could develop a rate to take effect after that through a UTC proceeding. These could include time-of-use net metering rates, and if they did, they’d be encouraged to include incentives for energy storage plans.

The bill would have the WSU Energy Program convene a work group with representatives of a range of stakeholders on the future of net metering in the state. The group would consider its implications for the solar industry workforce, the rate of deployment of consumer-owned solar and storage, and future electric load growth, the reductions in utility income associated with different levels of net metering, and equitable distribution of the benefits of consumer-owned solar and storage. It would provide an inventory of other states’ deviation from net metering laws and the impact that had on solar installations, solar installers, utilities, utility customers, rural land, tribal land, and customer-generator payback periods. It would consider whether it’s reasonable for utilities to count consumer-owned clean energy systems in their territory toward their Clean Energy Transformation Act compliance targets. The Energy Program would study the magnitude of any cost shifts among ratepayers associated with retail rate net metering in Washington state, under scenarios assuming total net metered generation capacity of six percent, 12 percent, and 24 percent of 1996 peak power. The work group report would make recommendations on what alternatives to net metering should be considered by the Legislature and when it would be reasonable to implement those, taking the findings of the cost shift study into account, and the Energy Program would report to the Legislature on this work by December 2026.

The bill would require contractors installing solar systems to have written contracts with customers complying with a detailed list of requirements.

The bill declares the Legislature’s intent to update and implement a new net metering policy by 2035, and its position that any rate or tariff offered by a utility under a future net metering policy must compensate customer-generators at a rate that’s different than the retail rate; be expressed as a percentage of the retail rate; be communicated to customers with three year’s notice from when it’s first publicly proposed to when it would go into effect; and allow for inclusion of time-of-use net metering rate structures for distributed storage.

HB1185

HB1185 – Updating and expanding the state’s producer stewardship program for lighting products.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Hackney (D; 11th District; Renton & Tukwila) (Co-Sponsors Duerr, Berry, Ramel, Fitzgibbon, Doglio, and Pollet – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy  January 23rd. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 16th. Died in Rules 2023. Returned to the House Committee on Environment and Energy for the 2024 Session. Had a hearing January 18th. Replaced by a 2nd substitute and passed out of committee January 25th. Referred to Rules.
Next step would be – Action by the Rules Committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Substitute –
The substitute in 2023 prohibited disposing of lights in most solid waste and recycling containers, and made some other small changes that are summarized by staff at the beginning of it. In the folder with materials for the executive session, there’s a staff summary of the changes made by the substitute in 2024 at the beginning of it; they mostly dealt with lights containing mercury.

Summary –
The bill would prohibit the sale of lights containing mercury starting in 2026, with some exceptions for special purpose lights, and create penalties for violations. It would expand the current product stewardship program for lights containing mercury to include the end of life management of most lights by the same date.

The producers of lights for sale in the state would have to continue to manage and fund the current product stewardship program, expanded to cover collecting, transporting, reuse, recycling, processing and final disposition of all types of lights, including the special purpose ones containing mercury which could still be sold. The bill would eliminate the environmental handling charge which is currently added to the price of lamps containing mercury to fund the program; it would be directly funded by the producers. (However, they still wouldn’t be responsible for the costs of curbside or mail-back collection programs, except for transporting and processing the lights from those. They would still have to fund and manage free collection sites and pay for the transportation and processing of lights from those.

At least 90% of the state’s residents would have to have a permanent collection site within 15 miles, and an additional site would be required for every 30,000 residents in urban areas. The program would have to provide reasonable opportunities for people in rural areas farther from the required sites to drop off unwanted lights at collection events. The bill specifies additional requirements for outreach and consumer education about the expended program, including a survey about public awareness of it at least every five years. It adds specifications about the safe handling of lights containing mercury, and specifies that plans have to prioritize recycling of other materials to the extent that’s practicable. It would now require programs to include contingency plans to keep providing services if a stewardship organization stopped.

Stewardship programs would be required to design their charges to producers to encourage the use of recycled content and discourage the use of undesirable materials. They’d have to reimburse local governments for the costs when a local government facility or solid waste handling facility served as a collection location. The bill also adds provisions for Ecology’s review and approval of stewardship organization’ plans, and revises Ecology’s procedures for dealing with violations to adjust them to the expanded system. It drops the current law’s provisions for reporting on the availability and purchasing of energy efficient lights in the state.

HB1131

HB1131– Improving solid waste management outcomes.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Berry (D; 36th District; Northeast Seattle) (Co-Sponsors Doglio & 16 other Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy January 17th; replaced by a substitute and amended by the prime sponsor February 2nd, then passed out of committee. Referred to Appropriations, and had a hearing there February 15th. Replaced by a second substitute, amended, and passed out of committee February 21st. Referred to Rules.
Next step would be – Action by the Rules Committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5154 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments – The bill is 143 pages long, so trying to summarize the details seems ill advised. I’ve tried to cover the important points.

Changes made in House Environment and Energy –
There’s a several page summary by staff of the changes in the substitute at the beginning of that. The amendment struck and replaced all the sections about the optional beverage deposit return program. There’s a three page staff summary of those changes at the end of the amendment.

Changes in Appropriations –
Staff summarized the additional changes in the 2nd substitute in several pages at the beginning of it. (The amendment exempted packaging for certain insecticides, fungicides, and rodenticides from the requirements.)

Summary –
The bill would create a system funded and managed by the producers for dealing with used packaging and paper products sold or supplied to consumers for personal use. It would create requirements for postconsumer recycled content. It would create a deposit program as an optional alternative for managing beverage containers.

Producer Product Responsibility Organizations –
Producers would have to join a producer responsibility organization, report annually to the Department of Ecology on the covered materials for which they were responsible, pay their shares of the cost of running the program including needed infrastructure investments, pay an annual fee to cover Ecology’s costs in administering and enforcing the program, and meet performance targets improving over time for reducing the production of plastic components, the reuse of collected materials, and their recycling (but not for simply collecting materials, I think.). Producers would also fund a statewide needs assessment of solid waste issues and the ongoing work of a new solid waste advisory council. Detailed plans for managing covered materials, meeting a long list of requirements, would be due by July 2027 (and be subject to approval by Ecology); reporting by organizations on their performance would begin in July 2028. (Products couldn’t be labeled as recyclable unless they were covered by a program.)

A consultant would do the needs assessment, covering a long list of issues such as current and future feasible infrastructure and services, costs, education and outreach, criteria for handling different products, labor and social justice concerns, litter and marine debris prevention, toxic substances in covered products, and any other items the Department added. The consultant would also recommend performance targets designed to be reachable statewide by 2032. (As far as I can see, organizations would establish their own targets in their plans.) The advisory council and stakeholders would have an opportunity to review and comment on scope for the study and on the draft, and Ecology would be authorized to update it at five year intervals.

Plans would have to be developed in consultation with stakeholders and the advisory council. Plans would include arrangements for continuing service if an organization stopped providing them. and consumer education and outreach activities to support the achievement of the performance rates. Plans would include ways to incentivize the redesign of covered products to be reusable, recyclable, or compostable; as well incentivizing preventing waste and reducing consumer packaging. They’d have to eco-modulate setting the fees for producers to encourage the use of packaging designs that reduce products’ environmental impacts. They’d have to be updated regularly.

Organizations would have to collaborate with and reimburse regulated private curbside collection programs as well as those existing government programs that chose to participate. They’d have to provide a variety of other convenient ways to recover used materials, including collection sites all around the state. Getting materials into the system would have to be free, easily accessible, and meet various other requirements. (Retailers could choose to host collection sites or events.) If organizations contracted with service providers to meet their obligations, those providers would have to meet various labor and reporting standards. Organizations would have to report to Ecology on their activities each year.

Programs would have to prioritize waste reduction, then recycling, before incinerating or landfilling materials. There are detailed requirements for collection and management of materials, and for reporting by producer organizations and processing facilities.

Requirements for Postconsumer Recycled Content –
The bill would replace current requirements for recycled content in various products; these would apply to household cleaning product containers; personal care product packages, most beverage containers; tubs; thermoform containers; single-use cups; and cannabis containers or packaging materials that were made of plastic. Minimum recycled content requirements for these different products would come into effect at different levels in different years between 2024 and 2036. The producer responsibility organizations representing the producers of these products would report to Ecology annually on their performance. The department could adjust the requirements depending on various factors, and assess penalties for failures to meet the requirements. The bill adds new recycled content requirements for collection bins, pots and trays, and pesticide containers made of plastic.

Beverage Container Deposit Program –

Producer responsibility organizations would be allowed to create a 10¢ deposit return system for glass, metal, and plastic bottles or cans as an alternative to managing beverage containers through the recycling requirements. (Cartons, foil pouches, drink boxes, metal container that need a tool to open, and containers for dairy milk or formula wouldn’t be included.) This system would be created if distributors of the majority of beverages in qualifying containers formed a distributor responsibility organization; in that case, all the distributors of those containers would have to join that organization, or meet the requirements for an organization themselves. Ecology would implement, administer, and enforce the program, and collect a fee covering those costs; the distributors would pay for operating the system, and for half the costs of the advisory council and the needs study. Organizations would have to submit detailed plans for deposit return programs for Ecology’s approval, meeting a variety of requirements. Plans would have to include education and outreach; stakeholder consultations; methods for paying the refund to consumers, governments, and processing facilities returning containers; an additional premium for containers returned by non-profits serving very low income individuals who rely on refunds; and at least 270 free convenient bulk drop-off locations for bagged containers around the state, convenient to places selling beverages in containers. Dealers wouldn’t be required to accept bags or provide drop-off sites, though. If organizations contract with service providers to meet their obligations, there are labor and social justice standards for those. Unclaimed refunds would have to be invested in operations and infrastructure supporting the reuse and recycling of qualifying beverage containers. By 2031, an organization would have to demonstrate that all the containers in its program were designed to be reusable or recyclable, and there would be specified gradually increasing requirements for the percentages of containers that were actually recycled or reused between 2028 and 2035. There would be detailed reporting requirements. Ecology would also collect funds from distributor organizations for a five year program to reimburse curbside collection programs for revenue losses resulting from reductions in the number of containers in those bins.

In addition –
By December 2025, Ecology would have to complete a study of options for improving the convenience of state product stewardship, takeback, and producer responsibility programs, including establishing centralized takeback centers for consumers; and make policy recommendations to the Legislature about improving the environmental end of life management of products covered by these. Ecology and the Department of Revenue would do a study of the bill’s effects on the litter rates of covered products and containers, and make recommendations on possible improvements to the structure of the tax.

The bill also amends details of some existing laws, including ones about solid waste in general, ones about the regulation of some solid waste companies by the UTC, and ones about cannabis packaging, to take account of the additional activities of producer responsibility organizations and beverage distributors that the bill envisions.

HB1192

HB1192 – Improving electric power system transmission planning.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Duerr (D; 1st District; Bothell) (Co-Sponsor Doglio – D) (By request of the Governor.)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy  January 19th. Replaced by a substitute matching the changes made in the Senate’s companion bill and passed out of committee February 13th. Referred to Rules.
Next step would be – Action by the Rules Committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5165 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Substitute –
The substitute specifies that projects with nominal ratings of at least 500,000 volts AC or 300,000 volts DC have to seek Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council certification, and that projects that aren’t subject to the Council’s jurisdiction still have the option to use local government permitting processes. It clarifies that transmission assessment in an IRP has to include opportunities to make more effective use of existing transmission capacity through improved operating practices and non-wires solutions, and that a clean energy action plan has to document a utility’s efforts to use existing capacity more effectively.

Summary –
The bill would require the assessment in each utility’s integrated resource plans of its future needs for regional generation and transmission capacity, and of the availability of those, to be based on forecasts over twenty years rather than ten. The assessments would have to take into account the state’s emissions reduction limits and the requirements of the Clean Energy Act; opportunities to make more effective use of existing transmission capacity through energy efficiency, demand response, grid modernization, and other programs; and the electrification of transportation and other end uses historically met using fossil fuels. The assessment would have to identify the utility’s expected need to develop new or expanded bulk transmission facilities.

The bill would expand the current requirement for developing 10 year Clean Energy Action Plans to include all utilities, not just investor owned ones. Those plans would now also have to document existing and planned efforts by the utility to secure the additional transmission capacity it anticipated needing in its IRP. They would have to give reasonable consideration to energy resources that would use conditional firm transmission services, where their reserved service might be curtailed under specific limited conditions. Utilities would be encouraged to do statewide, multiutility, and interstate transmission planning. They’d be required to seek the support of a variety of industry and public interest organizations in improving the planning and development of transmission capacity.

The bill would add the construction, reconstruction, or enlargement of new or existing electrical transmission facilities of at least 500,000 volts; located in more than one county; and located in the Washington service area of more than one retail electric utility to the facilities required to apply for siting through the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council. The bill would have the Director of the Council coordinate state agency participation in environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act of transmission projects proposed or sited by a Federal agency .

HB1135

HB1135– Authorizing using impact fees for bicycle and pedestrian facilities.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Slatter (D; 48th District; Bellevue) (Co-Sponsor Walen – D)
Current status – Passed out of the House Committee on Local Government January 20th. Referred to Rules.
Next step would be – Action by the Rules Commitee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5452 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Summary –
The bill would expand the current definition of the public facilities on which impact fees may be spent to include bicycle and pedestrian facilities.

SB5091

SB5091 – Expanding tax incentives for hydrogen fuel cells.
Prime Sponsor – Senator King (R; 14th District; Yakima)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Business, Financial Services, Gaming & Trade January 19th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 16th. Referred to Ways and Means. Had a hearing March 9th. Replaced by a second substitute specifying that the incentives are for green electrolytic hydrogen; passed out of committee April 4th and referred to Rules. Returned to Business, Financial Services, Gaming & Trade for the 2024 Session.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Substitute –
This made changes in dates, eligibility, and other details that are summarized by staff at the beginning of it.

Summary –
The bill would create and expand 10 year tax incentives for the research, development, production, and sale of hydrogen fuel cells in the state. It would reduce the B&O tax on businesses manufacturing or selling fuel cells in the state to 0.2904 percent. It would provide a B&O tax credit for 1.7% of a business’s expenditures on fuel cell research and development each year. It would provide a credit eliminating the property or leasehold excise taxes on land used for manufacturing fuel cells. In addition, it would provide a credit eliminating the property tax on the machinery and equipment for manufacturing, research and development, and testing that’s already exempted from the sales tax, if the machinery and equipment were used in manufacturing fuel cells.

(It also says that the Legislature intends to extend the incentives if what seem like inevitable outcomes occur.)