Category Archives: Sequestration

HB1895

HB1895 – Developing a plan for the conservation, reforestation, and restoration of forests in Washington State.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Harris-Talley (D; 37th District; Rainier Valley) (Co-Sponsors Maycumber, Steele, Graham, – Rs; Leavitt, Ramos, Lekanoff, Valdez, Shewmake, Simmons, Stonier, Peterson, Berg, Kloba, Callan, Riccelli, Macri, and Duerr – Ds) (By request of the Department of Natural Resources)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture & Natural Resources January 18th. (Still in committee at cutoff.)
Next step would be – Dead bill
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5633 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Summary –
The bill would require the Department of Natural Resources to create a voluntary, incentive-based working and nonworking forest conservation and reforestation plan intended to conserve at least a million acres of working forestland and reforest at least a million acres by 2040. The plan would have to respect the full diversity of landowner management and investment objectives, and utilize or develop incentive-based strategies that address preventing the loss of working and nonworking forestland across the state; opportunities to implement incentive-based carbon compensation programs for avoiding conversion and reforestation; reforestation on forestland impacted by wildfire, pests, disease, landslides, land-use change, and other stressors; and tree planting and increased canopy coverage in urban areas. prioritizing highly impacted or overburdened communities. It would have to use the plan to assess and prioritize conservation and reforestation actions each biennium.

The Department would be required to develop a framework to address the goal, mapping and prioritizing areas across the state based on criteria including risk of permanent forest loss, or the loss of critical environmental, economic, cultural, equity, or health benefits including value to local economies, carbon sequestration, landscape-level habitat connectivity, or salmon recovery and important wildlife habitat. It would evaluate and promote existing carbon compensation programs and other incentives for emissions reductions to assist forestland owners in voluntarily engaging in carbon markets. It would map and prioritize historically forested areas, including postwildfire areas and areas where reforestation or afforestation efforts might support environmental restoration, local economic development, or tribal restoration objectives, and it would conduct an analysis of the regional reforestation pipeline, including seed collection, nursery capacity, and workforce needs, to ensure an adequate basis to meet goals and growing needs. (Reforestation analyses would be required to include an ecological assessment of advantages and disadvantages of intervention, and of best strategies for maintaining and restoring ecological integrity and resilience to climate change.) It would map and prioritize urban and community areas where tree planting might provide environmental, economic, or health benefits, particularly to highly impacted or overburdened
communities. It would conduct the analysis needed to develop a strategic plan, including specific criteria to prioritize the conservation of forests at risk of conversion, and analysis of the reforestation pipeline, the state’s private sector logging and milling capacity, and equity and environmental justice impacts.

In developing the framework, the department would have to consult with impacted communities using the State’s community engagement plan and identify opportunities to increase equity in forestland ownership; utilize the Washington health disparities map to help identify highly impacted or overburdened communities lacking equitable access to forest benefits; consult with the Washington State Office of Equity on how to make values-driven, data informed decisions to identify and address disparities impacting communities of color; invite input from tribes on forested areas with important cultural, ecological, and economic values threatened by conversion or other disturbance; and engage a range of stakeholders (including a long specified list) in the development and implementation of the conservation and reforestation plan.

The Department would be required to identify, prioritize, utilize, and develop voluntary tools, financing opportunities, and incentive-based activities consistent with the plan, using appropriations provided for that specific purpose. It would have to utilize and build on various previous reports to the Legislature. It would assess and inventory existing voluntary tools, financing opportunities, and incentive-based activities relevant to the goals of the plan, and consider new ones. These might include tools such as payment for ecological services, technical or financial support to small forestland owners, tax or market incentives, conservation and working forest easements, fee simple land acquisition, or transfer of development rights. The Department would identify their limitations and make recommendations to improve, accelerate, or expand them to maximize their effectiveness. It would identify new or existing voluntary tools, financing opportunities, and incentives addressing economic stressors that contribute to forest conversion (including the retention of milling infrastructure, market access,
and workforce development); that give financial value to the underlying environmental, health, equity, and cultural values of working forestlands; and that provide support to small working forestland owners achieving their objectives and goals.

The Department would develop a pilot rapid response fund to test opportunities and barriers to acquiring private working forestlands at imminent risk of conversion from willing sellers, and maintaining them as working forests.

By December 1st 2022, the Department would report to the Office of Financial Management and the appropriate committees of the Legislature including a map and justification of identified priority areas, an approach to monitoring to assure that the forested acres were meeting the criteria of success established in the plan, and a description of activities to be undertaken consistent with it. The plan would have to be finalized and submitted to them by December 1st 2023. Each biennium after that, the Department would have to submit a report reviewing previous and future activities. This would include a list and brief summary of tools, financing opportunities, and incentives used in the preceding biennium, including total funding, costs for those, and their outcomes and effectiveness. It would highlight any of them that contributed to more equitable outcomes, including equity in forestland ownership, access to green spaces, and urban tree cover canopy. It would include any barriers to implementation, legislative or administrative recommendations to address those, and a comparison of the requested and actual funding for the plan the previous biennium, with an analysis of the additional progress that would have been expected with full funding, if that’s possible. The report would include a list and brief summary of tools and incentives to be used in the next biennium with requested appropriations, including information from the prioritization process. It would identify potential partnerships between the State and the forest products industry to promote the use of those as a way toward maintaining the state’s forestland base and reaching its emissions goals, and would identify a range of other potential partnership opportunities. The report would include criteria by which working and non-working forested areas would be considered protected from conversion, including a minimum time frame for that conclusion. It would provide an update on the acres of working and nonworking forestland by region, and on private sector logging and milling capacity, including gains or losses, and potential reasons for significant changes. It would provide an update on the quantity and quality of jobs created or sustained through conservation and reforestation activities; on the locations and acres reforested; and on consultation with highly impacted communities.

SB6355

SB6355 – Recognizing contributions of forest products to the state’s climate response.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Van De Wege (D; 24th District; Sequim) (Co-Sponsors Short, Takko, King, Mullet, Salomon, Zeiger, Conway, Sheldon, Liias, Warnick, Honeyford, and Wagoner)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks January 28th. A substitute passed out of committee February 6th. Referred to Rules February 11th; placed on second reading February 17th. Failed to pass out of the Senate by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2528 is a companion bill in the House.

Comments –
The substitute keeps the bill in synch with the House version. It adds aquatic lands to the current list of potential sequestration resources in carbon markets, and it adds promoting and investing “in industry sectors that act as sequesterers of carbon” to the short list of what must be done with any revenue the state gets from carbon markets. It adds supporting “other business sectors capable of sequestering and storing carbon” to the declaration of the State’s policy, and switches from language about supporting an “indivisible industrial sector” to supporting a “synergistic” one.

It no longer specifies that the policy of the State is to utilize net flux stock-change carbon accounting principles; now its policy would simply be to use principles consistent with established guidelines, “such as” the IPPC’s and the US national greenhouse gas inventory’s. It expands the possible recipients of grants for carbon sequestration to include nonprofit organizations, local governments, Indian tribes, and state agencies as well as private landowners, and it widens the list of projects that might be funded to include urban forests and “forestlands” rather than “working forests.” It removes the requirement that reforestation and afforestation projects receiving grants would have to remain forested for at least fifty years. Rather than requiring the Department of Commerce to simply promote the forest products industry, it would now require it “when doing so maintains or enhances the forest sector’s contribution to climate change mitigation,” but that doesn’t seem like a significant change, since the bill continues to maintain that the whole industry, as it currently exists, has to be supported in order to contribute.

Summary –
The bill adds language to the findings for the State’s current greenhouse gas legislation (RCW70.235) about sequestering carbon through sustainable forestry and forest products, and about supporting industry sectors that sequester carbon.

It adds a section to that legislation saying that the industrial forest sector is a significant net sequesterer of carbon, and that this value, which is only provided through the maintenance of “an intact and indivisible industrial sector,” is an integral component of the state’s efforts to mitigate carbon emissions. It says that satisfying the goals of that legislation “requires supporting, throughout all of state government, the economic vitality of the forest products sector.” It says it’s the policy of the state to support “the complete forest products sector,” including mills, pulp and paper, and the harvesting and transportation infrastructure that’s necessary to continue the rotational harvest cycle. It says it’s the policy of the state to utilize net flux stock-change carbon accounting principles consistent with the IPCC’s and the national greenhouse gas inventory. It concludes by saying that any state carbon programs must support these policies.

It creates a forest carbon reforestation and afforestation account to be used by the State Conservation Commission, less reasonable administrative costs, in funding competitive grants for private landowners and organizations that work with them to advance the state’s carbon sequestration goals. (Grants are to leverage the sequestration and storage benefits of the State’s investment, and can provide funding for reforestation after a wildfire for which the landowner was not responsible; funding for projects to return fallow land capable of supporting trees to working forest; and funding to plant sustainable forested buffers along nonforested fish bearing streams.) Recipients have to agree to maintain all the land in “forested uses” for a minimum of fifty years. The account can also be used for a study to estimate how many acres of deforested land in the state could be returned to working forests without having an effect on food production.

It adds actively promoting markets for the state’s forest products, including “any products of an indivisible industry sector necessary for the maintenance and expansion of the sector” to the list of the Department of Commerce’s responsibilities.

SB6529

SB6529 – Revises the State’s urban forestry program to include tribes, and to prioritize salmon and environment justice goals.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Nguyen (D; 34th District; White Center) (By request of the Department of Natural Resources.)
Current status – Referred to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks. Failed to make it out of committee by 2020 cutoff; dead bill.
Next step would be –
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2768 is a companion bill in the House.

Comments –
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

HB2713

HB2713 – Requires the State and local governments to use compost and reimburses farmers for using it.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Walen (D; 48th District; Kirkland)
Current status – Bill signed, but Governor vetoed Section 4, which created a pilot program to reimburse farmers who purchased compost from solid waste recycling facilities.
In the House – (Passed)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on State Government & Tribal Relations February 5th. Substitute passed out of committee February 7th; referred to Appropriations. Had a hearing there February 10th; passed out of Appropriations February 11th. Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor and passed by the House February 16th. House concurred in the Senate amendments March 9th.

In the Senate – (Passed)
Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology; had a hearing February 25th. Amended and passed out of committee February 26th. Referred to Ways and Means; had a hearing there on February 28th. Passed out of committee and referred to Rules on March 2nd. Passed the Senate March 5th. Returned to the House for possible concurrence.
Next step would be – Signature by the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
In the House –
The substitute also provides exceptions to the requirement for using compost in projects if the total cost would be financially prohibitive; if its application of compost will have detrimental impacts on the soil used for a specific crop; if the project consists of growing trees in a greenhouse; or if the available compost hasn’t been certified as free of crop-specific pests and pathogens.

It now encourages local governments to buy back compost, rather than requiring that. It requires participants in the pilot program to comply with agricultural pest control rules before transporting or applying compost, and it limits reimbursements in the program to compost that’s from a facility with a solid waste handling permit and hasn’t been created by the operation seeking reimbursement.

The floor amendment prioritizes reimbursements in the pilot program to small farming operations, and makes them subject to appropriations, and makes a couple of small adjustments.

In the Senate –
The Senate committee amendment makes a few small changes in the details of the pilot grant program.

Summary –
The bill requires state agencies and local governments to consider whether compost can be used in projects when they’re planning them. If it can be used, they’re to do that, unless it isn’t available within a reasonable time, doesn’t meet existing purchasing standards, or doesn’t meet Federal or State health and safety standards. They’re encouraged to give priority to compost that’s produced locally, compost that’s certified by a nationally recognized organization, and compost that’s produced from municipal waste.

Local governments with residential composting services must have purchasing agreements with their processors to buy back at least fifty percent of the compost produced from their organic waste, and the processor’s required to charge a fair competitive market rate. They’re encourage to buy compost made from at least 8% food waste.

The Department of Agriculture is to create a three-year pilot program, beginning July 1 2020, to reimburse farming operations in the state for the costs of purchasing and using compost products, including transportation, equipment, spreading, and labor. (The Department is to create a new position for a program manager with the knowledge and expertise necessary to facilitate the division and distribution of reimbursements and manage the day-to-day coordination of the program.) Payments are limited to fifty percent of the costs and capped at fifty thousand dollars a year; farmers can’t be paid for compost that they’ve transferred, or intend to transfer to another individual or entity, whether for compensation or not .

HB2714

HB2714 – Valuing the carbon in forest riparian easements.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Hoff (R; 18th District; Southwest Washington) (Co-sponsors Fitzgibbon, Orcutt, Blake, Chapman, Lekanoff, Van Werven, Tharinger, and Kretz)
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 and Natural Resources January 28th. Substitute bill 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 unanimously February 16th.

In the Senate –
Referred to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks; had a hearing February 28th; replaced by a striker, amended, passed out of committee, and referred to Rules.
Next step would be – Dead bill…
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6498 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
The committee substitute adds some language to the findings that supports applying sustainable management techniques to currently unmanaged forests and transferring carbon from standing forests to wood products.

It also requires the Department of Natural Resources to calculate the amount of carbon stored in qualifying timber in future riparian easements, and specifies that landowners are free to monetize the value of the stored carbon in existing easements through markets. It requires any state program that places a value on carbon to include this carbon, and specifies that if the State starts valuing carbon, it must reimburse landowners for the value of the stored carbon in easements as well as for the value of the timber, or allow owners to market the stored carbon separately.

The striker in the Senate committee no longer requires DNR to calculate the amount of carbon in future easements, and it removes the provision I’ve summarized in the last clause of the previous paragraph, beginning with “and specifies that if….”. (I don’t think that actually made a substantive change in the bill, since as I read it, I think that other language in it had the same effect…) However, the amendment changed the language which said that any state program that placed a value on carbon must include the value of the stored carbon in easements to say one “may” do that.

Summary –
The bill amends the current legislation about compensating landowners for forest riparian easements, specifying that the fair market value of the qualifying timber has to include any value attributable to the carbon stored in it, or reserve that value to be otherwise used or marketed by the landowner.

SB6498

SB6498 – Valuing the carbon in forest riparian easements.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Braun (R; 20th District; Cowlitz and Lewis Counties)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks January 30th. Failed to make it out of committee by 2020 cutoff; dead bill.
Next step would be –
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2714 is a companion bill in the House.

HB2528

HB2528 – Recognizing contributions of forest products to the state’s climate response.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Ramos (D; 5th District; Issaquah)
Current status – Referred to the Governor for signature.
In the House – (Passed)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, & Natural Resources January 28th. A substitute passed out of committee February 4th. Referred to Appropriations February 6th; had a hearing there February 8th. A 2nd substitute passed out of Appropriations February 11th. Referred to Rules; passed the House February 16th. House concurred in the Senate’s amendments March 9th.

In the Senate – (Passed)
Referred to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks. Had a hearing on a proposed striker February 20th; amended and passed out of committee that day. Referred to Ways and Means; had a hearing there on February 28th. Significantly amended and passed out of committee March 2nd; referred to Rules. Passed the Senate March 5th; returned to the House for possible concurrence.
Next step would be – Signature by the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6355 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
The substitute adds aquatic lands to the current list of potential sequestration resources in carbon markets, and it adds promoting and investing “in industry sectors that act as sequesterers of carbon” to the short list of what must be done with any revenue the state gets from carbon markets. It adds supporting “other business sectors capable of sequestering and storing carbon” to the declaration of the State’s policy, and switches from language about supporting an “indivisible industrial sector” to supporting a “synergistic” one.

The 2nd substitute, in Appropriations, removed the modified provision requiring Commerce to support the forest products industry.

The striker in the Senate committee excluded state trust lands from the provisions dedicating any future revenue from state forests’ participation in carbon markets to specified goals. It made the Department of Natural Resources responsible for managing the revenue account, in cooperation with the Conservation Commission and the Department of Agriculture, and the amendment dropped the entire section about the Department of Commerce. The amendment in Ways and Means eliminated the grants program and the potential study to determine how many acres in the state could be returned to forest.

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.

HB2095

HB2095 – Creates grant program for sustainable farms and fields.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Walsh (R; 19th District; Southwest Washington)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, & Natural Resources. Still in committee by 2019 cutoff ; reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5947 is an identical companion bill in the Senate.

Comments – The bill makes the grants dependent on the provision of available funding for a dedicated account it establishes, but it currently seems to require the Department to develop the program whether or not there’s any funding provided for it.

Summary –
Requires the Department of Agriculture to develop a sustainable farms and fields program to make grants supporting agroforestry; increasing the carbon content of soils; and reducing agricultural uses of water, energy, and of fertilizers and pesticides produced from fossil fuels. There’s no provision in the bill for funding the program, other than providing for an account in the treasury for the program.

Details –

Roughly sixty percent of the funding is to be divided evenly among grants for agroforestry; for carbon sequestration; and for reducing the use of water, energy, and fertilizers and pesticides. Grants can be used for down payments on equipment. The rest of the money is to go to what the Department judges will be the most effective of the remaining projects.

(However, there may not be money for further grants. The Department can also spend up to 20% of the funds on watershed protection projects, research programs or to support the development of new businesses in the state, even if those expenditures would not qualify for program funding otherwise. It can also spend up to 10% of the money on administrative assistance to applicants, up to 5% of it on educational campaigns to publicize the program, and up to 5% of it on administrative costs. During the first five years of the program, up to 5% of the funding can be used in developing methods for prioritizing projects.)

Activities on commercial working forest land, aquaculture and blue carbon projects, and activities other than agroforestry on land that’s in a land retirement program are not eligible for these grants.

The Department’s to consult with other agencies to develop methods for estimating, measuring, and verifying outcomes; and to prioritize awards to try to maximize the reduction in atmospheric greenhouse gases per dollar awarded by leveraging other funding. It’s to estimate these reductions by counting the storage of a ton of carbon dioxide equivalents in soil or standing trees for 100 years as the equivalent of avoiding putting a ton of them into the atmosphere, and by treating storage for lesser periods of time proportionally.

The Department can require applicants to enter into contracts committing them to carry on activities for various periods of time, including in perpetuity, as a condition for receiving funding for a project. They can receive an annual payment for storage during the previous year, or a payment based on expected future storage, with a provision for recovering funding if that doesn’t materialize because they’re negligent.

The Department’s to report to the Legislature on the program every two years.

HB2082

HB2082 – Pilot project for riparian agroforestry and carbon sequestration with payments to landowners.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Walsh (R; 19th District; Southwest Washington)
Current status – Referred to College & Workforce Development Committee. Still in committee by cutoff 2019. Reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
The current bill lacks the sort of details about how to manage payments for sequestration that SB5947 proposes methods for. It isn’t clear how the sequestration landowners get paid for is supposed to be measured or verified. In particular, it isn’t clear how long you have to keep a ton of carbon sequestered in order to get paid $10 for it, or what happens if you get the fee and then cut the trees. (Since a ton of carbon is roughly the equivalent of 3.7 tons of CO2, the scale of the payment would be something like $2.70/ton of avoided emissions.)

Summary –
Creates an pilot program for funding tree planting along streams on fallow and underutilised agricultural land to cool water for salmon and sequester carbon. The program is to be developed by several departments at the UW, WSU’s cooperative extension program, and the Department of Commerce. Participating landowners are to be paid ten dollars for each verified ton of carbon sequestered.

Details –
The pilot’s to show the capacity of tree plantings around streams on unforested land to reduce temperatures and increase salmon survival; to establish the carbon sequestration benefits of agroforestry on fallow or underutilized lands; and to establish a model revenue stream for landowners. The pilot’s to run through 2039, and the bill declares the Legislature’s intention to fund it for that period.

It can include surveying available, unused, or underused agricultural land in Western Washington that could be used for riparian-oriented agroforestry production; locating private landowners who wish to participate in the initiative; and selecting, planting, tending, and monitoring various species in different locations to develop useful data about effects on stream health, salmon survival, and carbon sequestration.

They’re to produce a periodically updated study of changes in stream health, including the effects on temperature, suspended sediments and turbidity, water quality, habitat, and nutrient availability; the impact of different site characteristics including soil types, elevation, aspect, and precipitation on tree growth and carbon sequestration rates; and the amount of carbon sequestered per site, per acre, and per year, across different soil types and tree species, and at different growth stages. Commerce is to report to the Legislature on the project and any available results every two years, starting in October 2020.

Projects are exempt from the Forest Practices Act’s rules.

SB5947

SB5947 – Creates grant program for sustainable farms and fields.
Prime Sponsor – Senator McCoy (D; 38th District; Snohomish County)
Current status – Referred to the Governor for signature.
Next step would be – Signature by the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2095 is an identical companion bill in the House.

2020 Legislative History –
In the Senate (Passed)
Returned to Senate Rules 3rd Reading by the House at end of 2019 Session; reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session. Passed by the Senate January 15th; referred to the House. Senate concurred in the House changes March 10th.

In the House (Amended version passed)
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, & Natural Resources February 7th. Replaced by a striker, amended, and passed out of committee February 28th. Referred to the House Committee on the Capital Budget; had a hearing and passed an amended striker out of committee there on March 2nd. Passed by the House March 4th. Returned to the Senate for possible concurrence.

2019 Legislative History –
In the Senate (Passed)
Referred to Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks. Had a hearing in that committee February 19th. A rewritten substitute bill with minor changes in the content passed out of committee February 21st. Had a hearing in Senate Ways and Means March 1st, and passed out of that committee with amendments. Placed on 2nd Reading by Rules March 4th. Passed the Senate March 6th.
In the House
Referred to the Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, and Natural Resources. Had a hearing in the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, and Natural Resources on March 28th. Still in committee by 2019 cutoff; returned to Senate Rules 3rd Reading by the House at end of 2019 Session.

Comments –
The 2019 substitute bill delays appropriation of any funding except for rule making and the report until January 2020, makes the grant program an option for the Department of Agriculture even if it’s funded, makes its different aspects dependent on appropriated specific funding, and allows grants for some commercial forestry projects including work in areas depleted by fire or pests.

(The original bill made the grants dependent on the provision of available funding for a dedicated account it established, but it seemed to require the Department to develop the program whether or not there was any funding provided for it.)

The 2020 striker in the House committee eliminates any references to reductions of emissions from fossil fuels, water, energy use, and fossil-fuel based herbicides or pesticides; it adds a number of references to encouraging more use of precision agriculture. It shifts the primary responsibility for the program to the Conservation Commission, and increases its ability to shape the program very significantly, by eliminating most of the previous version’s specifications for how the money is to be allocated, how grants are to be awarded, and what they can be awarded for. (There is still a list of allowable uses, but it now concludes with “other equipment purchases or financial assistance deemed appropriate by the Commission”; it does include new limits on how much funding can be spend on developing, advertising, and administering the program.) It uses the previous bill’s specification of the method for estimating carbon storage as a starting point, but lets the Commission change that. It limits the length of carbon storage contracts to twenty-five years, and it requires prioritizing proposals that benefit fish habitat and reducing the priority of any that are expected to significantly damage fish or wildlife habitat.

The amendment makes the bill contingent on the appropriation of at least $400,000 each to the Conservation Commission’s water irrigation efficiencies program; its natural resources investments program; and its shellfish growing area improvement program. The changes in the House Capital Budget Committee replace this provision with one that makes the program dependent on specific appropriation for it, and drop a final section about encouraging cost sharing and prioritizing grants which I think was probably more or less redundant, given language earlier in the bill about that.

Summary –
The bill requires the Department of Agriculture to develop a sustainable farms and fields program to make grants supporting agroforestry; increasing the carbon content of soils; and reducing agricultural uses of water, energy, and of fertilizers and pesticides produced from fossil fuels. There’s no provision in the bill for funding the program, other than providing for an account in the treasury for the program.

Details –

The Department’s to report to the Legislature on the program every two years.

HB2047

HB2047 – Researches carbon sequestration and supports participation in existing forest carbon markets and incentive programs.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Ramos (D, 5th District, Issaquah) (By request of the Department of Natural Resources)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, & Natural Resources, February 20th at 8:00 AM. Passed out of committee with an amendment February 22nd; referred to Appropriations. Second substitute passed out of Appropriations February 28th. Referred to Rules. Placed on 2nd Reading March 11th 2019. 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.

Comments –
The amendment added aquatic lands to the bill.

Summary –
Subject to specific appropriations, would expand DNR’s current research on establishing baseline inventories for carbon stocks, flux, trends, emissions, and sequestration in forests across the state. Requires a report to the Legislature on results, needs for further research, ways to improve the methods, and a suggested schedule for updates by December 1st, 2020.

Subject to specific appropriations, would require DNR to help interested owners of forest land connect with existing carbon markets and other incentive-based carbon emission reduction and sequestration programs. This may include:

Identifying carbon market opportunities and incentive programs;
Matching interested and willing landowners with appropriate programs;
Studying the overlaps and interactions among different programs and identifying roadblocks to expanding them;
Assisting landowners with access to feasibility analyses, market applications, stand inventories, pilot project support, and other services;
Supporting policies that increase access to these programs;
Developing and, when possible, implementing incentives for participation in them, and;
Sharing best practices for expanding carbon storage and access to incentive programs.

DNR is to provide interim reports about this work to the Legislature and a final report by December 1, 2023.

Subject to specific appropriations, the Governor and DNR must form a carbon sequestration advisory group to report to the Legislature by December 1st 2019 and every two years after that on ways to effectively advance and accelerate carbon sequestration throughout the state, considering the need to maintain existing long-lived carbon stocks and the need to make carbon sequestration easier; focusing on market efficiency and reducing transaction costs; on avoiding unintended consequences; and on maintaining a viable forest products and sawmill industry.

Details: