HB2009 – Revises Senate environmental justice bill.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Reeves (D, 30th District, Federal Way)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on State Government and Tribal Relations on February 15th. Passed out of committee February 20th, and referred to Appropriations. Pulled directly from Appropriations to the floor, replaced by a striker, and passed just before cutoff April 17th 2019. Returned by the Senate to House Rules Committee for third reading. Reintroduced and retained in present status for 2020 session. Now in the House Rules “X” file.
Next step would be – Action by the House Rules Committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
This bill rewrites and revises SB5489.

Comments –
SB5489’s Republican opponents in the Senate proposed 30 amendments to the bill when it came to the floor on the last day on which a bill from the opposite house could be passed before cutoff, effectively preventing a final vote there. In response, the House pulled this version directly from committee and passed it. It now will need concurrence by the Senate.

The striker’s provisions are summarized on its last two pages. (There’s one weird thing about its drafting; it now says that the foundation of the bill, the cumulative impact analysis that agencies are supposed to rely on, means an “analysis tool…” rather than the analysis done with that tool.)

Compared to the version that passed the Senate, it expands the task force by adding four legislators, the owner of a minority owned small business in an impacted area and a member from a mid-sized economic development organization representing business interests appointed by the Governor, and someone representing statewide agricultural interests appointed by the Commissioner of Public Lands. It specifies that the task force may consider tribal exposure scenarios, Federal SuperFund sites, and State Toxics Control sites in determining impacted communities. It adds two items to the task force’s work load – a report on best practices for evaluating potential displacements of residents and increases in environmental burdens during local governments’ comprehensive planning, and recommendations for addressing the equity implications of the effects of the historical application of Federal and State environmental and land use regulations on rural communities. It drops the recommendations for including analysis of the distribution of environmental burdens across population groups in SEPA evaluations and the methods for incorporating the precautionary principle in decision making from the work to be done if time allowed. It adds a preliminary report on uncompleted tasks and additional resources needed, and requires agencies to report on the adoption of any “rules, policies, or guidelines related to the cumulative impact analysis” to appropriate legislative committees rather than just to the Interagency Council on Health Disparities.

It drops the phrase that said agencies shall adopt the cumulative impact analysis “with any needed modifications,” and flatly says that their rules, policies, and guidelines must be consistent with the task force’s guideline unless they provide a compelling reason to deviate from them, which they must report to the Council and appropriate committees. It says the bill’s null and void if specific funding for it isn’t appropriated this session.

Summary –

The bill keeps SB5489’s intent section, and revises a lot of its prose, while keeping many of its actual provisions.

However, it makes significant changes in the composition of the powerful task force that both versions set up to create rules for state agencies about defining and implementing environmental justice. It now has the Governor appoint the representative of a statewide environmental justice organization to co-chair the task force, rather than having that person be “a representative of statewide environmental justice interests.” (That organization is presumably Front & Centered, the bill’s creator.) It replaces four representatives living in communities with high levels of pollution with three members from some currently unspecified “organization” appointed by the co-chairs with diversity in mind. It reduces the task force’s size, dropping a tribal leader; the representatives of labor, of business, and of statewide environmental interests; and the potential representatives from each of any other agencies the Governor might add. (Since there are still representatives from eight agencies on the task force, the Governor’s appointees would have a clear majority in this revised group.)

It also changes the central definition of “environmental justice” from “fair treatment and [a] right … to have access to a safe, healthy environment” to the “fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people … with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” (That is, it’s now about due process, not outcomes.)

Details –
It allows the task force to consider factors in addition to the UW’s specified analyses in its guidance to agencies on designating “highly impacted communities,” and adds recommendations for how to integrate the distribution of environmental burdens across population groups into evaluations under the State’s Environmental Policy Act to the task force’s work.

This bill narrows the agencies required to use “all practicable means and measures to promote environmental justice and fair treatment” from all agencies to those on the task force. It continues to require agencies to conduct cumulative impact analyses, but now says they “may” rather than “shall” “issue policies… and adopt rules …to identify highly impacted communities, create target environmental health standards, and prioritize highly impacted communities … in the development, adoption, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, policies, and funding decisions.” It eliminates requiring agencies to review their programs, plans and policies every five years to ensure they’re promoting the reduction of disproportionate environmental burdens and the attainment of the health targets.

The bill also makes specific provisions for staffing and funding, which aren’t in the Senate bill.