SB6281 – Increasing funding for reforestation after wildfires and other destructive events.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Van De Wege (D; 24th District; Olympic Peninsula) (Co-Sponsors Warnick, Dozier & Short – R’s; Mullet – D)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks January 25th. Replaced by a substitute, amended, and passed out of committee January 29th. Referred to Ways & Means.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comment –
The bill is nearly identical to HB2446. (However, that does not specify that recipients could use the funds to pay for reforestation work by DNR or stock from DNR’s nurseries; prioritize direct reforestation, or specify that funds could also be used to support aspects of the reforestation pipeline to ensure the sustainability of the program.)

In the Senate –
The folder with materials for the executive session has the substitute and there’s a staff summary of the next changes at the beginning of that. The amendment removed the provision allowing funding form the Climate Commitment Act to be used for the grant program or DNR’s wildfire reforestation programs.

Summary –
If funds were specifically appropriated for it, the bill would have the Department of Natural Resources create a grant program for climate-informed reforestation after wildfires and other large scale events that damaged forest ecoservices. Grants would be available to tribal ownerships, nonprofit landowners and managers, industrial and nonindustrial private forestland owners, local governments, and other state agencies. Federal lands and lands directly managed by DNR would not be eligible, though recipients could use the funds to pay for reforestation work by DNR or stock from DNR’s nurseries. The recipents’ share of the costs would be limited to 25%, including in-kind contributions. DNR would prioritize projects on private forest land where the owners weren’t required to replant; projects including reforesting riparian buffers, potentially unstable slopes, or other areas where state regulations restrict harvesting; and direct reforestation. (Funds could be used to support aspects of the reforestation pipeline to ensure the sustainability of the program, though.) The Department would set minimum and maximum sizes for the grants, and take environmental justice into consideration in making awards.

The bill would add the grant program and DNR’s own work reforesting after wildfires to the list of activities that can be funded by revenue from the Climate Commitment Act, and appropriate up to $10 million this fiscal year for each of these.