SB5345 – Creates an industrial waste coordination program to support local industrial symbiosis projects.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Brown (R; 8th District; Benton County) (Co-sponsors Rolfes, Das, Hasegawa, Lovelett, Mullet, Nguyen, Randall – all Ds, and Rivers – R)
Current status –
In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology February 3rd. Passed out of committee February 9th, and referred to Ways and Means. Had a hearing there February 16th, and passed out of committee on the 18th. Passed by the Senate February 26th. Senate concurred in the House amendments April 14th.
In the House – Passed
Referred to the Committee on Environment and Energy. Had a hearing March 12th. Replaced by a striker and passed out of committee March 26th. Referred to Appropriations, had a hearing April 1st and passed out of committee the same day. Referred to Rules April 2nd; passed by the House April 10th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
Summary –
House striker –
The striker simply adds environmental justice to the list of program goals and family wage jobs to the list of program goals, and specifies that the program’s grant projects and best practices for industrial hubs should include avoid creating or worsening negative impacts to overburdened communities.
Original bill –
The bill creates an industrial waste coordination program, administered by the Department of Commerce and regional facilitators, to support local industrial symbiosis projects. It’s to develop inventories of current industrial waste innovation; generate a system to manage data on material flows, resource availability and potential synergies; establish best practices for local industrial resource hubs; identify access to capital to fund projects; develop economic and environmental performance metrics to measure the results of industrial or commercial hubs; host workshops and connect businesses, governments, utilities, research institutions, and other organizations to identify opportunities for resource collaboration; assist throughout the life cycle of symbiosis projects, from identifying opportunities to full implementation; develop economic cluster initiatives to spur growth and innovation; and make recommendations to the Legislature about other ways to facilitate industrial symbiosis.
It would establish a competitive grant program for the research, development, and deployment of local waste coordination projects, if funds were specifically appropriated for that. Grants could support:
1. Existing public or private industrial symbiosis efforts;
2. Emerging symbiosis opportunities involving public or private sector organizations, including projects arising from the bill’s industrial waste coordination program, conceptual work by public utilities on redirecting their wastes to productive use; or existing inventories or project concepts for converting specific biobased wastes to renewable natural gas;
3. Research on product development using a specific waste flow;
4. Feasibility studies to evaluate potential biobased resources;
5. Feasibility studies for publicly utilities evaluating business models on transforming to multiutility operations or potential symbiosis with other regional businesses; or
6. Other local waste coordination projects specified by Commerce.
Grants would require equal matching funds, would be limited to $500,000, and would have to be allocated considering factors such as time to implementation and scale of economic or environmental benefits, as well as distributed equally in western and eastern parts of the state, urban and rural areas, and small towns and large cities.
The bill extends the current exemptions from disclosure for financial, commercial, and proprietary information to include this program.