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.

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.

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.

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.