HB2744 – Including the use of low carbon materials and contractors’ disclosure of labor law compliance in the awarding of state construction contracts.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Doglio (D; 22nd District; Thurston County) (Co-Sponsors Duerr, Davis, Fitzgibbon, Ramel)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Capital Budget Committee on January 28th; substitute passed out of committee February 6th. Referred to Appropriations.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
Comments –
In the 2018 session, Representative Doglio introduced HB2412, “Buy Clean” legislation roughly modeled on California’s. It would have had state agencies awarding construction contracts require environmental product declarations for various materials. It was replaced by a substitute bill, which would simply have had the University of Washington develop methods to collect environmental product declarations for building materials, test them on six public works projects, and report to the Legislature on the results. That didn’t make it out of the House Rules Committee, but the study was funded in the capital budget and completed in January 2019.
Some of the changes in the substitute are summarized on the last page of the House Bill Report for that.
Summary –
This new bill covers projects receiving funds from the capital budget for buildings with more than five thousand square feet of occupied or conditioned space, renovations of such buildings that cost more than 50% of the assessed value, and transportation projects funded or carried out by the Department of Transportation that cost over $1 million and use more than a minimal amount of covered materials.
After 18 months in which it would just be encouraged, bidders for contracts on these projects would be required to include environmental product declarations providing robust full life-cycle assessments of the associated greenhouse gas emissions for any concrete; rebar; structural steel and unit masonry; wood; wood products; and gauge metal products intended for decking, wall or floor system studs that they proposed using. Successful bidders would be required to submit additional facility specific environmental product declarations for materials before their installation, if those declarations for the particular facilities producing their materials already existed.
The Department of Commerce would set a maximum acceptable global warming potential for each category of material, at approximately the eightieth percentile of the product weighted distributions of the emissions intensity of each category of product, and express that as a number stating the maximum acceptable facility specific global warming potential for each category. (If funds were made available for it, the Department could provide at least half the cost of developing their environmental product declarations to small businesses.) It’s to report on its methods to the Legislature, and to adjust the acceptable value downward every three years. In each cycle, the value’s to be set at the lower of:
(a) the 90th percentile of the values submitted during the previous three years, stepped down at a rate which would get the acceptable value to zero by 2050, or,
(b) the maximum acceptable value in 2023, stepped down at a rate which would get to a 50% reduction by 2030. (After that, the maximum acceptable value from 2030 would be stepped down at a rate which would get it to zero by 2050.)
Beginning July 1, 2023, when a bid for a primary structural material from a company meeting the State’s other criteria for responsible bidders doesn’t exceed the maximum acceptable global warming potential for the material, an awarding authority must award the contract to the bid with prices lower than the engineer’s estimate that uses the lower carbon eligible material. [I think this means that if there’s more than one otherwise acceptable bid under the engineer’s estimate the contract must go to the bid using the lowest carbon material, even if that’s higher than other bids below the estimate. A “primary” structural material isn’t defined in the bill; I think this just means what the bill does define as “structural materials” – ones that support loads in a building as part of “its primary structure”, or support loads in a transportation project, or form a “primary lateral system” resisting wind and earthquake loads.] It must consider awarding a contract to a bid that uses the lower carbon eligible primary structural material if the bid is no greater than fifteen percent above the lowest bid; and it may award a contract to a bid that uses the lower carbon eligible material even if the bid is more than fifteen percent above the lowest bid.
After 18 months in which it would just be encouraged, the bill would require bidders or proposers for one of these project contracts to report on their compliance, including their subcontractor’s compliance, with the domestic and applicable international labor laws in countries where they produce goods or services. The Office of Financial Management is to incorporate requirements for state agencies to consider lower carbon building materials and domestic labor law compliance declarations in existing business processes and tools including, but not limited to, facility planning, predesign, and budget instructions. [As far as I can see, the bill doesn’t require taking the compliance reports into account in awarding contracts, though perhaps that’s required somehow by some other existing law…]
Beginning in 2023, to the extent that it’s practical, state contracts and the building code are to use performance based specifications for concrete and unit masonry used structurally, not prescriptive specifications.
The bill concludes by amending quite a few sections of the current laws about awarding contracts for various kinds of projects, by agencies and various jurisdictions, to say that they have to consider the additional criteria allowed or required in the bill, if those rules are applicable.