SB6628 – Responds to Supreme Court ruling by specifying that Ecology has the authority to regulate direct and indirect emissions of greenhouse gases.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Carlyle (D; 36th District; Seattle) (By request of the Governor.)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology January 29th. An amended substitute passed out of committee February 6th; referred to Rules. Failed to pass out of the Senate by cutoff, but referred back to Rules by motion on February 26th.
Next step would be – Dead bill…
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2892 is a companion bill in the House.

Comments – The Washington Supreme Court recently ruled (5-4) that the State’s Clean Air Rule can’t apply to companies that sell or distribute petroleum or natural gas because they don’t make their own emissions — other people burn the fuel they provide. The Court held that the Department of Ecology is currently only authorized to regulate “actual emitters.”

The substitute adds findings, and its definitions specify that the act applies to indirect emissions as well as direct ones in a somewhat different way. (It doesn’t seem like a substantive change to me.) It adds sections requiring the UTC to provide prudent and timely cost recovery for measures that utilities take to comply with the act, and requiring the Department of Ecology  to try to integrate new state greenhouse gas requirements with existing ones, and to try to design new requirements to help companies comply with those and with existing regulations at the lowest cost possible. It also adds facilities that can make over 100 million gallons of renewable fuel a year to the list of projects of statewide significance that can apply for expedited permitting and other support.

Summary –
The bill amends the State’s Clean Air Act to specify that it applies to direct or indirect emissions, and to say explicitly  that the Department of Ecology “may require persons who produce or distribute fossil fuels or other products that emit greenhouse gases in Washington to comply with air quality standards, emission standards, or emission limits on emissions of greenhouse gases.”