SB6430 – Establishing a statewide industrial waste coordination program.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Brown (R; 8th District; TriCities)
Current status – Vetoed by the Governor.
In the Senate – (Passed the Senate)
Passed out of the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology January 22nd. Referred to Ways and Means; Had a hearing there February 10th at 10:00 AM. Passed out of Ways and Means February 11th. Referred to Rules; passed the Senate unanimously February 17th.
In the House – (Passed the House)
Referred to the House Committee on Environment and Energy; had a hearing February 24th. Passed out of committee February 27th; referred to Appropriations. Passed out of there and referred to Rules March 2nd. Passed the House March 6th.
Next step would be – To the Governor for signature.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
Summary –
The bill would establish a statewide industrial waste coordination program to support and coordinate existing collaborations where underutilized resources of one company, such as waste, by-products, residues, energy, water, logistics, capacity, expertise, equipment, and materials are used by another company, and would support new opportunities for such industrial symbiosis projects.
The program would be administered by the Department of Commerce to provide expertise, technical assistance, and best practices to support local industrial symbiosis projects; it would be managed regionally, with a dedicated facilitator and technical and administrative support for each region.
The program would be required to develop inventories of current industrial waste innovation; generate a material flow data collection system to capture and manage data on resource availability and potential synergies provided voluntarily; establish guidance and best practices for emerging local industrial resource hubs; identify access to capital in order to fund projects; develop economic and environmental performance metrics for industrial or commercial hubs; host workshops and connect regional businesses, governments, utilities, research institutions, and other organizations to identify opportunities for resource collaboration; assist organizations throughout the life cycle of projects, from identification of opportunities to full implementation; develop economic cluster initiatives to spur growth and innovation; and make any additional recommendations to the legislature in order to incentivize and facilitate industrial symbiosis.
If funds were appropriated, the program would be authorized to establish a program offering competitive grants for researching, developing, and deploying local waste coordination projects. Grants could be used for existing industrial symbiosis efforts by public or private organizations; emerging opportunities including projects arising from the industrial waste coordination program established by the act, conceptual work by public utilities on redirecting their wastes to productive use, or existing inventories or project concepts involving converting specific biobased wastes to renewable natural gas; research on product development using a specific waste flow; feasibility studies to evaluate potential biobased resources; or feasibility studies for publicly owned utilities evaluating shifting to multiutility operations or potential symbiotic connections with other regional businesses. Grants would be limited to under $500,000, would require a one-to-one match from nonstate funds, would have to be distributed geographically, and would be awarded considering factors such as time to implementation and scale of expected economic or environmental benefits.
The bill extends the current legislation exempting some financial, commercial, and proprietary information from public disclosure to cover this program.