HB1832 – Electrifying public vehicle fleets.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Macri (D; 43rd District; Seattle)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on State Government & Tribal Relations, February 13th. A much weakened substitute bill passed out of committee February 22nd; referred to the House Committee on Transportation. Had a hearing there February 28th 2019. Reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session.
Next step would be – Action by the Transportation Committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
The House Bill Analysis is available here.

Comments – The changes in the substitute bill are summarized on its first page. It removes all the requirements for electrifying fleets by particular dates, converts the plan for doing that to a study of the issues, and shifts the responsibility for doing that from the Department of Enterprise Services to the Joint Transportation Committee.

Summary –

Requires any 2023 model light duty vehicles or later ones that state agencies own or operate to be battery electrics or fuel cell vehicles. By 2026, a similar rule would apply to medium and heavy duty vehicles.

Requires any 2025 model light duty vehicles or later ones that local governments own or operate to be battery electrics or fuel cell vehicles. By 2027, a similar rule would apply to medium and heavy duty vehicles.

Prohibits the Department of Licensing from registering public vehicles that don’t meet the requirements. Would allow the Department of Enterprise Services to exempt emergency vehicles and any others if it determined there weren’t adequate vehicles on the market to meet their requirements.

Requires the Department of Enterprise Services to develop a plan for electrifying public vehicles and meeting these requirements by 2021, in consultation with a number of other stakeholders and with consideration of other vehicle fleet programs.

Details:

The plan must include:

• Estimates for the number of publicly owned electric vehicles and internal combustion engine vehicles during the period between 2121 and 2030, broken down by a number of categories;
• Estimates for the facilities needed to provide prompt, efficient, and cost-effective fueling for them during this transition, and an estimate of the yearly and total cost of building those;
• An analysis of the electrical upgrades needed for those facilities and of the investment required to implement them;
• Estimates of the differences between the purchase price of new electric and internal combustion vehicles during this transition;
• Estimates of their respective lifetime costs of ownership during the period, including estimates of the yearly reductions in gasoline and diesel sales, the savings to taxpayers from those, and of the money that would have gone elsewhere retained in the state; and,
• Identification of mechanisms that could be utilized to finance the transition of public fleets to electric vehicles.

It’s to include recommendations for rules to exempt vehicles from the requirements, and the Department’s also to evaluate the total potential costs and total potential economic and noneconomic benefits of the plan using the best available economic models, emission estimation techniques, and other scientific methods.