Category Archives: Senate Bills 2022

SB5366

SB5366 – Requires environmental product declarations and reporting on labor issues for materials used in constructing and renovating State buildings.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Stanford (D; 1st District; Bothell)
Current status – Referred to State Government & Elections.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
This is a companion bill to HB1103.

In the Senate 2021 –
Referred to the Senate Committee on State Government & Elections; was not heard. Reintroduced in 2022.

Comments –
Unlike Representative Doglio’s 2020 bill, HB2744, this simply requires reporting, rather than prioritizing low carbon materials in awarding contracts. (That bill passed the House Committee on the Capital Budget, but died in Appropriations; there was a good deal of testimony at the hearing).

Summary –
This new bill covers projects receiving funds from the capital budget for new buildings with more than 25,000 sq ft of occupied or conditioned space, and renovations of such buildings that cost more than 50% of the assessed value.

Beginning July 1st 2021, before the final project payment, firms would be required to submit any available environmental product declarations providing robust full life-cycle assessments of the associated greenhouse gas emissions for 90% by weight of any structural concrete; structural steel; reinforcing steel, including rebar; and engineered wood in the project. They’d also have to submit specified information about measures taken to promote labor rights in the supply chain, and a detailed list of working conditions in the final manufacturing facility and in facilities at which production processes that contribute to 80% or more of the product’s cradle-to-gate global warming potential occur. Starting a year later, they’d be required to submit product declarations and labor data for all the covered materials before the final payment, and starting a year after that, they’d have to submit them before the material was installed. If a firm can’t meet the requirements, it bears the burden of providing evidence to show that the data does not exist in a form that is recorded or transferable; that the requirements would be a hardship relative to the size of the firm or the product supplier based on a specific estimate of costs to collect and transfer the information; or that the requirements would disrupt the selected firm’s ability to perform its contractual obligations. [I’m not sure how the first of these items fits with the point of going from requiring “available” product declarations at the beginning to just requiring them the next year…]

Details –
If funds are made available, the Department of Commerce is authorized to provide financial assistance to small businesses, covering at least half what it costs them to produce one of the required environmental product declarations. Starting January 1, 2026, the environmental product declarations would be required to report actual data quality assessments including variability in facility, product, and upstream data for key processes.

The UW’s College of Built Environments is to create a publicly accessible database for covered projects to anonymize and report the required data and promote transparency.

SB5312 (2022 Session)

SB5312 – Facilitating transit-oriented development through grants to cities and counties paying the costs of preparing environmental analyses that can be used by applicants for development permits.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Mullet (D; 5th District; Issaquah)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy February 18th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate 2021 – Passed
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Housing and Local Government January 27th; passed out of committee February 4th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate 43-2 on February 16th.
In the House 2021 – Did not get a floor vote.
Referred to the House Committee on Environment and Energy. Had a hearing March 11th, amended and passed out of committee March 19th. Referred to Appropriations; had a hearing March 30th; replaced by a striker and passed out of Appropriations March 31st. Referred to Rules April 2nd; never reached the floor for a vote. Returned to Senate Rules, and passed again in 2022.

In the Senate 2022 – Passed
Reintroduced in Senate Rules in the 2022 session and passed January 12th. Returned to the House.
In the House 2022 –

Summary –

In 2021 _
House Appropriations striker –
The striker made several small changes which are summarized at the end of it.
House committee amendment –
This extended the period during which cities that planned to take at least two of the long list of options to increase density in RCW 36.70A.600 could apply for planning grants. (It would now include actions until April 1, 2025 instead of April 2021.)

Original bill –
The Department of Commerce currently awards grants or loans to cities and counties from the Growth Management Planning and Environmental Review Fund. These can be used to assist them in preparing environmental analyses for the state that are integrated with “a comprehensive plan, subarea plan, plan element, countywide planning policy, development regulation, monitoring program, or other planning activity adopted under or implementing” the GMA; and improve the process for project permit review while maintaining environmental quality.

The bill says appropriations to the fund for the purpose of facilitating transit-oriented development may be used for grants to pay the costs associated with a somewhat different list of activities – the preparation of State Environmental Policy Act environmental impact statements, planned action ordinances, subarea plans, costs associated with using other tools under SEPA, and the costs of local code adoption and implementation of such efforts. It specifies these funds may only go to efforts that address environmental impacts and consequences, alternatives, and mitigation measures in sufficient detail to allow the analysis to be adopted in whole or in part by applicants for development permits within the area analyzed.

SB5085

SB5085 – Sets the additional alternative fuel vehicle registration fee for electric motorcycles at $30 a year.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Rolfes (D; 23rd District; Bainbridge Island)
Current status – Referred to House Transportation. Had a hearing and passed out of committee February 28th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House March 8th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate 2022 – Passed
Reintroduced in Transportation; amended to reduce the fee for motorcycle registrations starting in November 2022 rather than 2021, and passed out of committee February 14th. Referred to Ways and Means, and passed out of committee February 22nd. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate February 25th.

In the Senate 2021 – Passed
Referred to the Senate Committee on Transportation; had a hearing on February 18th. Replaced by a substitute and voted out of committee February 22nd; referred to Rules. Passed by the Senate March 8th.
In the House 2021 – Died in committee.
Referred to the House Committee on Transportation. Had a hearing March 15th. Died in committee. Still in committee at cutoff; Returned to Senate Rules.

Summary –
I regret to say my original summary of the bill misread a line at the end that would have removed the annual $75 transportation electrification fee currently paid by plug-in vehicles, other alternative fuel vehicles and hybrids. (However, the substitute dropped that, so what the bill would do now is all I thought it did originally – set the additional alternative fuel vehicle registration fee for electric motorcycles at $30 a year.)

SB5042

SB5042 – Delays vesting of development rights associated with actions under the Growth Management Act until sixty days after final planning decisions are made.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Salomon (D; 32nd District; Shoreline) (Co-Sponsor Billig – D)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 17th. Passed out of committee February 22nd; referred to Rules, and passed by the House March 3rd.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate 2021 –
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Housing and Local Government January 12th; passed out of committee January 28th. Referred to Rules. Was still in the house of origin at cutoff.

In the Senate 2022 – Passed
Reintroduced in Senate Rules for the 2022 session; passed by the Senate January 26th.

In the House 2022 –
Referred to Environment and Energy.

Summary –
The bill sets the “initial effective date” of various planning changes covered by the Growth Management Act at sixty days after the publication of a notice of adoption for the action (or sixty days after the issuance of the Growth Management Hearing Board’s final notice, if there’s a review.) The bill’s findings say that the current legal interpretation of the GMA sets this effective date (and the vesting of development rights which occurs then) earlier in the process, and allows those rights to vest before the validity of plans and regulations can actually be determined.

The bill applies to actions that expand an urban growth area; remove the designation of agricultural, forest, or mineral resource lands; create or expand a limited area of more intensive rural development; establish a new fully contained community; or create or expand a master planned resort.