SB5842 – Making adjustments to the Climate Commitment Act, and creating an Executive Office of Climate Policy and Accountability in the Department of Ecology.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Carlyle (D; 11th District; Seattle) (Co-Sponsors Liias, Das, Nguyen, and Nobles – Ds)
Current status – Senate concurred in the House amendments.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
Comments –
The provisions about the Office of Climate Policy and Accountability are presumably intended to shape the provision in the cap and invest act which says “The Governor shall establish a governance structure to implement the state’s climate commitment” in accordance with a long list of criteria.
I would have thought that the earlier provision saying the bill preempted the Clean Air Act would have left anything in that which the new bill didn’t cover operable; one of the Senate floor amendments will also repeal it.
In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 18th. Replaced by a striker eliminating the requirement that the rules for smoothing obligations over time match those of linked jurisdictions; requiring that investments from the price ceiling auctions produce at least a metric ton of reductions for each unit allowing a metric ton of emissions; and making some other small changes. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House March 2nd.
In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in Environment, Energy & Technology January 26th. Replaced by a substitute from the prime sponsor adding biofuels from wastewater treatment plants to the definition of biomass for the cap and invest bill, and moving a reporting date by six months; passed out of committee February 2nd. Had a hearing in Ways and Means February 4th. Replaced by a 2nd substitute from the prime sponsor and passed out of committee February 7th. (The 2nd substitute would let all covered entities use credits released through the price ceiling mechanisms to meet their compliance obligations. It would allow Ecology to suspend the price floor mechanism if it “might enter into a linkage agreement” with a jurisdiction that doesn’t have one. It specifies that the new Office of Climate Policy and Accountability would only report on the state’s progress in achieving GHG limits, rather than developing a strategic climate work plan; would not represent the State nationally or internationally; and could only implement laws administered by Ecology in accordance with the polices established in the bill and monitor their economic impacts to minimize leakage.) Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor to restrict the use of banked offset credits to those issued in the two years before the bill takes effect (or after that); to direct the Department of Ecology to repeal the Clean Air Act (in addition to saying this bill preempts it); and to drop the provision creating the Office of Climate Policy and Accountability. Passed by the Senate February 11th.
Summary –
Original bill –
Currently, the Climate Commitment Act (aka as the cap and invest program) uses the total state emissions between 2023 and 2025 as the basis for calculating the proportion of an entity’s emissions to total state emissions for entities that begin to be covered by the program during the second compliance period, from 2027 through 2030. The bill would use the total state emissions during 2015 through 2019 instead, which is what it does for entities covered during the first compliance period.
The bill would readopt Section 22 of the original act, about the managing and smoothing of compliance obligations, verbatim, except for the part about the poison pill provisions preventing the Act from taking effect unless an additive transportation package was passed. (The Governor vetoed all those provisions in the bill.) He also vetoed the rest of this section, on the grounds that it primarily provided a convenient summary of compliance obligations that duplicated other passages in the Act, that there weren’t any substantive aspects of the section that Ecology couldn’t adopt and implement through its rulemaking authority, and that it created an internal inconsistency with regard to the expiration date of allowances, because the ability of covered entities to rely on the last seven years of allowances in Section 22(1) conflicted with the unlimited time period for use of allowances in Section 9(2).
The bill would exempt a variety of specified bidding information from public disclosure, as well as information contained in the secure online tracking system, and various submitted financial or proprietary information.
It would narrow the current provision preventing a state agency from adopting or enforcing any other program that regulates greenhouse gas emissions from a stationary source. It would now allow them to adopt and enforce limitations on emissions from stationary sources that are not greenhouse gas pricing or market-based emissions cap and reduce programs, and that are authorized or directed by state statute or required to implement a federal statute, rule, or program.
It would create an Executive Office of Climate Policy and Accountability within the Department of Ecology, reporting to the Director. Its primary purpose would be supporting the state’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, providing accountability to achieve the State’s 2050 emissions limits and providing an accurate inventory of emissions. It would be required to aggressively implement laws and policies to achieve those limits, and would represent the State on national and international emissions reduction policies. It would be required to develop a strategic climate work plan with performance milestones and accountability measures, to present that to the Legislature by January 31, 2024, and to submit a legislative report on progress by January 31, 2025, and every two years afterwards.
Section 7 of the bill would change the name of what’s currently called “an auction ceiling price” to “a reserve auction floor price”, which seems like a confusing choice to me. (The reserve auction floor price is a ceiling price, because extra allowances from the reserve are sold at auction to increase supplies and hold the prices down if they rise above the floor for the reserve auction.)