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.