HB1985 – Relief from greenhouse gas regulations for agricultural commodities and food products with lower embedded emissions than imported equivalents.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Maycumber (R; 7th District; Northeast counties)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy February 18th. Still in committee by cutoff; reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
Comments –
“Food products” include animal feed, chewing gum, bottled water, and “articles used for components of any such article.” (I’m not sure if that includes the plastic bottle and the gum wrapper or not…)
If 95% of the imported apples being sold in Washington had lower emissions than your apples, you apparently could pick one of the producers of the 5% that didn’t as your competitor for the comparison.
I don’t see what the B&O taxes that may be included in the comparisons have to do with emissions, or how you’re supposed to estimate the emissions of “labor”. (Are you supposed to compare the energy use of 17 farmworkers with the emissions associated with manufacturing and operating a mechanical harvester that will do the same work?) There’s also no further specification of how to define or limit the scope of these life-cycle analyses, so there’s lots of room to get the comparisons to come out however you’d like them to by including or omitting thing like land use changes.) Doing these for food is notoriously complicated; in particular, it’s been estimated that transportation from the farm to the supermarket is only about 4% of its carbon footprint; lots comes from how much fertilizer and machinery you use.
Summary –
The bill requires the Department of Commerce to consult with Ecology and stakeholders and develop a model that allows producers of products and goods to estimate the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production and transportation of products and goods imported from out of state.
If any rule is created limiting the greenhouse gas emissions of agricultural commodities or food products a business can have Ecology compare the emissions associated with a specified competitors’ import with the same type of item from Washington. (A business can also provide the department with a comparison of its own from “a reputable greenhouse gas emissions expert.”)
If the comparison estimates that an imported product has higher associated emissions than the Washington one, Ecology is to provide regulatory relief for the producer of the agricultural commodity or food product to assure they remain competitive in the global market. This includes providing an exemption from any rules addressing greenhouse gas emissions, including those that limit or price emissions, require purchasing credits, or add additional costs to production.
Details
The calculations are to “include the gross estimated carbon emissions” of the items, including transportation, and may include “labor, business and occupation taxes, energy use of vehicles involved in production or transport, and clean air credit purchasing.”