Category Archives: All Bills 2023

SB5766

SB5766 – Funding a new account and creating a system to provide refunds for purchases of fuels exempt from the requirements of the Clean Fuels Act.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Mullet (D; 5th District; Central King County) (Co-Sponsor Nguyen – D)
Current status – Scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Ways and Means Committee at 12:30 PM on Monday April 10th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would create a Climate Commitment Act Remittance account and direct $50 million of the 2024 cap and invest auction proceeds to it; in subsequent years it would be funded by appropriations. It would have the Department of Ecology create a system for to refund farm fuel users and freight haulers of agricultural products eight-tenths of one percent of their fuel costs, in order to reimburse them for the additional amounts they will pay at the time of purchasing fuels exempt from coverage under the cap and trade program. The system would include a portal allowing the electronic submission of applications for remittance and specified supporting documentation. The bill would prohibit businesses from including any separate charges or costs on billing statements indicating that those are being imposed or collected because of the cap and invest act.

It would also have Ecology convene a work group with representatives from specified agencies and stakeholders to review the rules and processes developed for these and the other emissions exempted from coverage under the act and to develop recommendations for changes to laws, rules, policies, and practices to ensure the exemptions’ full use and benefit. The group would make recommendations and report on whether exemption processes have been responsive to markets’ reactions to the program; on whether the processes can be improved or alternatives developed to reduce the burdens on those seeking an exemption; on the adequacy of current guidance and tools to report them; on whether changes in the program for agricultural fuels created by the bill are needed; and on any other topics the group determines are needed to review the full use and enjoyment of the exemptions.

HB1846

HB1846 – Creating a new process for acquiring up to five hybrid diesel-electric ferries.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Fey (D; 21st District; Tacoma) (Co-Sponsors Lekanoff, Ramel & Tharinger – Ds; Barkis, Hutchins & Caldier – Rs)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Transportation Committee at 4:00 PM on Monday March 20th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5760 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Summary –
The bill would allow acquiring up to five hybrid diesel-electric ferries using a using a one or two contract procurement approach. (This would replace the current three stage request for proposals process, which includes a requirement that the vessels be built in Washington.) The new contracts would be for a minimum of two vessels, with options for up to five. They could be acquired through a design-build or design-bid-build process, or leased with an option to buy. The evaluation criteria might include a credit between 5% and 10% of the proposal for vessels constructed in Washington, as well as adjustments for the additional costs of transport and owner oversight for construction at ship yards located at a greater distance from Seattle; for meeting state requirements about apprenticeships or other state or federal equivalents; and for meeting water pollution control requirements.

Contracts eligible for Federal funds would have to comply with Federal disadvantaged business enterprise targets as outlined by the awarding agency. The Department would have to contract with third-party experts with knowledge of and experience with inland waterways, Puget Sound vessel operations, the propulsion system of the new vessels, and Washington state ferries operations to perform project quality oversight and report to the transportation committees of the Legislature and to OFM twice a year on project schedule, risks, and project budget; to assist with the management of change order requests; and to advise on contract and technical matters.

SB5760

SB570 – Creating a new process for acquiring up to five hybrid diesel-electric ferries.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Liias (D; 21st District; Everett) (Co-Sponsors King, Holy – Rs, Randall, Rolfes, Nguyen, Van De Wege, Hunt, and C. Wilson – Ds)
Current status – Scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Transportation Committee at 4:00 PM on Monday March 20th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1846 is a companion bill in the House.

Summary –
The bill would allow acquiring up to five hybrid diesel-electric ferries using a using a one or two contract procurement approach. (This would replace the current three stage request for proposals process, which includes a requirement that the ferries be built in Washington.) The new contracts would be for a minimum of two vessels, with options for up to five. They could be acquired through a design-build or design-bid-build process, or leased with an option to buy. The evaluation criteria might include a credit between 5% and 10% of the proposal for vessels constructed in Washington, as well as adjustments for the additional costs of transport and owner oversight for construction at ship yards located at a greater distance from Seattle; for meeting state requirements about apprenticeships or other state or federal equivalents; and for meeting water pollution control requirements.

SB5759

SB5759 – Creating a revolving loan program for specified clean energy projects.
Prime Sponsor – Senator MacEwen (R; 35th District; Mason County) (Co-Sponsor Nguyen – D)
Current status – Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would authorize the State Energy Office to make loans from a revolving fund for specified projects. They could be used to fund part or all of electric or hydrogen vehicle fleets, charging, or refueling stations; siting evaluations and permitting for energy generation or transmission projects that promote the energy reliability goals of the Clean Energy Transformation Act; installation of solar, wind, geothermal, or hydrogen infrastructure to assist with supplying the applicant’s energy needs; buildout of advanced nuclear reactor technology including small modular reactors; and promoting decarbonization of an applicant’s facility.

The bill would be null and void if specific funding for the program was not appropriated this session.

HB1832

HB1832 – Creating a program for a road use fee which vehicle owners could choose to pay instead of the gas tax.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Fey (D; 30th District; Tacoma) (Co-Sponsors Mena, Doglio, and Ramel – Ds)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Transportation, and had a hearing there at 1:30 PM on Tuesday February 21st; continued to noon on Thursday February 23rd.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would have the Department of Licensing create a program for a road use fee of 2.5¢/mile which the owners of plugin vehicles under 10,000 pounds could choose to pay instead of the gas tax, beginning in 2030. The bill would waive the $175 in additional registration fees those owners currently pay, for vehicles in the program. The annual road use fee would be reduced by the DOT’s estimate of any gas tax a plug-in hybrid paid during the year, and would be limited to the amount of the waived additional registration fees any of these vehicles would have been subject to if they were not in the program.

Owners would be able to choose between reporting miles driven by submitting periodic odometer readings or using one or more means of automated reporting the Department would develop. (The State Transportation Commission and the Department would explore and report on the possibility of having reporting mechanisms drivers could choose to use built into vehicles by manufacturers.) The bill has various provisions for limiting the collection of information to what’s necessary to determine the fee, requiring the owner’s specific consent, providing data security, and limiting public disclosure of location information.

SB5728

SB5728 – Reimbursing users of some fuels exempt under the cap and invest program for any additional amounts they pay because of their suppliers’ compliance obligations. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Senator Dozier (R; 16th District; Walla Walla & Benton County) (Co-Sponsor Schoesler – R)
Current status – Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
HB1780 addresses the same issue in a somewhat broader and less tightly drafted way.

Summary –
The bill would require the state to develop a process to ensure that users of the fuels for watercraft and agriculture that are exempted from complying with the cap and invest act are compensated for any additional amounts they end up paying for those because of their suppliers’ compliance obligations. (Ecology would consult with the Department of Revenue to develop a method to determine those amounts, and would be required to reimburse users for them within two weeks after completed applications for refunds were received.)

HB1789

HB1789 – Creating a Department of Natural Resources program selling carbon offsets and other ecosystem services based on state lands.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Reeves (D; 30th District; Federal Way) (By request of the Department of Natural Resources.)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology March 22nd. Replaced by a striker and passed out of committee March 28th. Had a hearing in Ways and Means March 30th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Changes in the Senate –
The changes made by the striker are summarized by staff at the end of it.

In the House – Passed
Referred to the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources. Had a hearing there on February 14th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee on February 17th. Referred to the Committee on the Capital Budget, had a hearing there February 20th, and passed out of committee February 22nd. Referred to Rules, replaced by a striker on the floor, amended, and passed by the House March 7th.

Changes in the House –
The substitute would have required projects on agricultural lands to produce no net decrease in agricultural production; have required forest projects to produce no net decrease in decadal sustainable harvest volume or operable forestland acres in the sustainable harvest unit as well as an increase in future sustainable harvest volume; and made some other smaller changes which are summarized by staff at the beginning of it.
The striker made significant changes that are summarized by staff at the end of it, including added a number of limits on projects and requirements for them. The amendment limits the options to afforestation, reforestation, and aquatic projects on public land, as well as removing the striker’s exception from the limits for up to 10,000 acres of projects.

Comments –
SB5688 is a different version of this bill, also requested by DNR. They have the same provisions for DNR’s activities. That bill also requires Ecology to create a program to help agencies and local governments develop carbon offset programs. This bill has a much more expansive findings section, and different definitions of “ecosystems services” and “ecosystem service marketplace” though it’s not clear to me that the differences have any practical significance.

Summary –
The bill would authorize the Department of Natural Resources to enter into contracts for up to 125 years based on providing ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and storage, air and water filtration, climate stabilization, disturbance mitigation, pollination, pest and disease control, waste decomposition and detoxification, and nutrient from land it manages. DNR could sell voluntary or compliance credits directly through established marketplaces, or contract with project developers or brokers to handle that, including paying them for determining projects’ feasibility; negotiating payments with an ecosystem service marketplace; and marketing and selling credits on one.

The Board of Natural Resources would develop rules for these contracts and set minumum payments covering periods of at least three months for them; it might also choose to set an actual price based on current markets. DNR would be required to report to the Board about each signed contract, including its term and projected revenues. (The bill says the Board could delegate its authority to approve “any credit sales that the Board is required by law to approve” to the Commissioner of Public Lands, but what sales those would be isn’t clear to me.)

Revenues from the sale of credits would be distributed to the Forest Development Account, the Aquatic Lands Enhancement Account, counties, and school districts in the same way that revenues from forests and aquatic lands are currently distributed.

HB1780

HB1780 – Requiring Ecology to ensure that the price impacts of the cap and invest program are not experienced by users of fuels for aviation, watercraft, agriculture and other off-road equipment. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Schmick (R; 9th District; Southeast Washington) (Co-Sponsor Dye – R)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Environment & Energy. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
SB5728 addresses the same issue in a somewhat narrower and more tightly drafted way.

Summary –
The bill would require Ecology create a program refunding inappropriate cap and invest surcharges for fuels with emissions exempted by the bill to users. (These include aviation and watercraft fuels, as well as dyed diesel used exclusively for agricultural purposes and off-road purposes.) Remittances would have to be available at least once a month to users submitting valid documentation showing that the surcharges had been applied when they shouldn’t have been.

Far more sweepingly, the bill also says that any rules Ecology adopts for the cap and invest program “must ensure that the price impacts of the program are not experienced by users of exempt fuel.”

HB1777

HB1777 – Modifying contracting for energy services and equipment by agencies and school districts.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Doglio (D; 22nd District; Olympia)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology March 14th. Replaced by a striker and passed out of committee March 28th. Had a hearing in Ways and Means March 30th. Amended and passed out of committee April 4th; referred to Rules. Replaced by a striker on the floor and passed by the Senate April 11th. House concurred in Senate amendments.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Changes in the Senate –
The striker would protect certain state jobs and make various other changes which are summarized by staff at the end of it. The amendment in Ways and Means would require performance based contracts to be more cost-effective than alternative available financing and service mechanisms; would no longer transfer equipment back to agencies and schools at no residual value; would require financing terms to end within the manufacturer’s life expectancy for the equipment; and makes a minor adjustment in the scope of required maintenance training. The changes made by the floor striker are summarized by staff at the end of it.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on the Capital Budget February 22th; passed out of committee February 21st, and was referred to Rules. Passed by the House March 1st.

Summary –
The bill would make some minor adjustments to the current laws about state agencies and school districts contracting for energy efficiency services and equipment. It would allow including service payments in these contracts. It would allow the value of energy equipment or services when entering into a contract to exceed the fair market value of property leased or owned by an agency or district, and require that to be considered cost-effective. It would authorize agencies and districts to enter into these contracts independently, not just through the Department of Enterprise Services.

The bill specifies that contracts would have to make the other party responsible for cost-savings and performance guarantees through the terms of the contract, as well as including terms transferring ownership of the equipment to the other party and requiring ownership to be transferred back to the agency or district at no residual value when the contract ended.

The bill would no longer allow school districts to sell energy savings to local utilities or Bonneville directly, though they could still do that through third parties. It would allow them to use financing contracts as well as performance based contracts to do conservation projects, as agencies currently can.

HB1768

HB1768 – Public utility tax exemption for electricity used by green electrolytic or renewable hydrogen businesses.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Shavers (D; 10th District; Island County) (Co-Sponsors Barnard – R; Chapman and Ramel – Ds)
Current status – Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Finance Wednesday February 22nd. Replaced by a substitute, amended, and passed out of committee March 9th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House with one vote opposed on March 16th.

Changes in the House –
There’s a summary by staff of the changes in the substitute at the beginning of it. The amendment added high heat industrial processes using hydrogen as a fuel, rail, and off-road agricultural or industrial equipment to the uses eligible for the exemption.

Summary –
The bill would create an exemption from the public utility tax for electricity used by businesses producing, storing, or dispensing electrolytic or renewable hydrogen for uses included in the state energy strategy, such as high heat industry, decarbonization of transportation, storage or generation of electricity, or fuels with a carbon intensity less than one under the Clean Fuels Act’s rules.

Operations would have to start before July 2033 to qualify, and utilities would be required to pass the reduction in their tax on to the businesses.

HB1250

HB1250 – Replacing the low-income home rehabilitation revolving loan program with a grant program.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Steele (R; 12th District; North Central Washington) (Co-Sponsor Eslick – R)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Housing March 10th; amended to update the low-income home rehabilitation account’s name in the section on the Treasurer’s trust fund, and passed out of committee March 22nd. Had a hearing in Ways and Means March 28th and passed out of committee April 4th. Referred to Rules and passed by the Senate April 12th. House concurred in Senate amendments.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House – Passed
Scheduled for a hearing in the House Committee on the Capital Budget at 1:30 PM on Thursday February 9th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 16th. Referred to Rules and passed by the House February 28th.

Substitute –
This would raise the maximum grant to $50,000; raise the ceiling on eligible income to 200% of the Area Median Income, and allow the cost of home rehabilitation to be based on 80% of the appraised value after rehabilitation or 80% of the assessed value.

Summary –
The bill would terminate the current low-income home rehabilitation revolving loan program, forgive any outstanding loan balances, and replace it with a grant program. Grants would now be available to people or households below 80% of area median income for the county or 60% of the state median income, whichever was greater. (The existing program caps eligibility at or below 200% of the Federal poverty level.) The Department of Commerce would be required to contract with rehabilitation agencies to provide home rehabilitation services, and to give preference to local agencies delivering programs and services with similar eligibility criteria.

SB5688

SB5688 – Creating programs selling carbon offsets and other ecosystem services based on state and local government lands. (NTIB?)
Prime Sponsor – Senator Lovelett (D; 40th District; Anacortes) (Co-Sponsors Nguyen, Hunt, Liias, Rolfes, and Saldaña – Ds) (By request of the Department of Natural Resources.)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology February 10th, and passed out of committee February 17th. Referred to Ways and Means.
Next step would be – Still in Ways and Means at the fiscal cutoff. (May be NTIB.)
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
HB1789 is a different version of this bill, also requested by DNR. They have the same provisions for DNR’s activities. This bill also requires Ecology to create a program to help agencies and local governments develop carbon offset programs. That bill has a much more expansive findings section, and different definitions of “ecosystems services” and “ecosystem service marketplace” though it’s not clear to me that the differences have any practical significance.

Summary –
The bill would require the Department of Ecology to create a program to help agencies and local government develop carbon offset programs for lands they manage, including funding or technical assistance to assess projects’ technical feasibility, investment requirements, development and operational costs, expected returns, administrative and legal hurdles, risks, and pitfalls.

It would authorize the Department of Natural Resources to enter into contracts for up to 125 years based on providing ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and storage, air and water filtration, climate stabilization, disturbance mitigation, pollination, pest and disease control, waste decomposition and detoxification, and nutrient from land it manages. DNR could sell voluntary or compliance credits directly through established marketplaces, or contract with project developers or brokers to handle that, including paying them for determining projects’ feasibility; negotiating payments with an ecosystem service marketplace; and marketing and selling credits on one.

SB5611

SB5611 – Improving community preparedness, response, recovery, and resilience to wildfire impacts in areas of increasing density. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Senator Wagoner (R; 39th District; Skagit & Snohomish County) (Co-Sponsors Shewmake, Hunt, Lovelett, Valdez, & Van De Wege – Ds) (By request of the Department of Natural Resources.)
Current status – Referred to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1578 is a companion bill in the House.

Summary –
The bill would require the Department of Natural Resources to assess areas at significant risk for wildfire over the next ten years, to do a mid-term interim report and to repeat the process for at least two succeeding ten year periods. The assessment would include an analysis of predicted climate influence on wildfire risk and provide enough detail for stakeholders to develop strategies to address it. The Department would cooperate with local law enforcement, tribes, county emergency managers, and local fire protection districts to develop evacuation strategies for areas facing significant wildfire risks and provide support to incorporate those in existing emergency response plans. It would lead a project to provide public disaster and evacuation plan messaging and information at the recreation and outdoor access sites it manages, including signage at trailheads.

In addition, the Department would be required to expand its programming for community and property wildfire readiness, and the associated programs such as resilience grants and service forestry within areas of western Washington where it determined there were wildfire and smoke exposure risks. It would participate in cross-agency emergency management planning and response efforts related to wildfire smoke. It would share wildfire information online, and incorporate smoke readiness into community resilience programming, coordinating with other government agencies to share information and guidance (including providing online fire information) for communities affected by wildfire smoke. It would establish a smoke monitoring and predictive services team using a variety of tools to assess wildland smoke risks and impacts; work cross-agency to address public health concerns, smoke risk to transportation safety, and firefighter exposure to smoke; and conduct community engagement and outreach related to smoke risks and impacts, with particular emphasis on environmental justice issues.

It would also coordinate with state agencies, local fire protection districts, local governments, and Indian tribes to identify smoke respite areas in high-risk communities and promote the utilization of community buildings as clean air and cooling centers, with specific information strategies targeted to people who might not receive electronic communication. It would leverage community resilience programming to ensure residents and organizations are provided information about services and programs to improve home indoor air quality, such as low-income weatherization services.

It would implement a postwildfire debris flow program, identifying areas prone to hazards from flows, assessing burned areas to determine potential for increases in flow hazards, improving modeling to determine triggers to use in postwildfire debris flow early warning, and communicating information about preparedness and response to officials, stakeholders, and the public. It would have to establish the structure for a state sponsored burned area emergency stabilization and response program in consultation with stakeholders by December 30th, 2024, making recommendations about the funding to provide capacity-building for communities to establish local teams, the number of teams needed, and the funding to support their deployments and implement hazard mitigation. The teams would be responsible for determining needs for emergency postfire treatments to help provide public safety and resource protection.

HB1578

HB1578 – Improving community preparedness, response, recovery, and resilience to wildfire impacts in areas of increasing density.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Springer (D; 45th District; East King County) (Co-Sponsors Kretz – R; Reeves, Leavitt, Ramel, Lekanoff, Reed, Pollet, and Kloba – Ds) (By request of the Department of Natural Resources.)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks March 20th. Replaced by a striker delaying various steps, making some other changes which are summarized by staff at the end of it, and passed out of committee March 27th. Had a hearing in Ways and Means March 30th. Amended to specify that until July 2025 the risk assessments are to be used in improving community fire preparedness and response and not for developing regulations, and amended to remove language about completing tasks within existing resources. Passed out of committee April 3rd; referred to Rules. Amended on the floor to specify that “tribes” means Federally recognized tribes, and passed by the Senate April 11th. House concurred in Senate amendments.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5611 is a companion bill in the Senate.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources February 8th. Replaced by a substitute making some minor changes and passed out of committee February 15th. Referred to Appropriations; had a hearing there on February 21st; amended to add a null and void clause and passed out of committee February 23rd. Referred to Rules and passed by the House unanimously March 6th.

Substitute –
The minor changes made by the substitute are summarized by staff at the beginning of it.

HB1756

HB1756 – Allowing large solar or wind projects to pay a production tax dedicated to providing local benefits instead of state property taxes.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Ramel (D; 40th District; Bellingham) (Co-Sponsors Klicker, Rude, Schmidt – Rs; Duerr, Reed, Kloba, Doglio, Senn, Ryu, and Macri – Ds)
Current status – Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology and passed out of committee March 24th. Had a hearing in Ways and Means March 31st. Passed out of committee April 4th and referred to Rules. Passed by the Senate April 19th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Finance at 8:00 on Tuesday February 7th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee March 9th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House March 16th.

House Substitute –
The changes made by the substitute are summarized by staff at the beginning of it.

Summary –
The bill would allow the owners of wind or solar projects over one megawatt AC to apply for an exemption from property taxes on projects and connected storage that began construction after July 1, 2023. They would pay a production excise tax on them instead. Solar projects could choose to be taxed at $80/month for each MW of capacity for ten years, or at $75/MW for fifteen years. Wind projects could choose to be taxed at $150/month for each MW for ten years or at $130/month for fifteen. Storage capacity would be taxed at $100/MW hour. (It’s not clear how long the storage tax is intended to apply.)

Revenue from the tax would go to a new Renewable Energy Local Benefit Account. Each county would receive 42.5% of the tax paid by a renewable energy system located in it. Each tribe would receive 15% of the tax paid by a system impacting its resources or rights, in proportion to the number of enrolled members of each affected tribe. Each school district would receive an appropriation from the remaining 42.5% of the tax paid by a system located in the same county, in proportion to the number of students it served.

HB1729

HB1729 – Creating B&O tax credits for hydrogen fuel cells and electrolyzers.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Abbarno (R; 20th District; Centralia) (Co-Sponsors Klicker, Volz, Orcutt, Schmidt, and Cheney – Rs)
Current status – Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Finance at 8:00 AM on Wednesday February 22nd. Replaced by a substitute that capped the total annual credits at $3 million, required prevailing wage rates to use the credits, and made a few other minor changes. Amended to make expenditures on research, development and deployment of hydrogen products eligible for the credits and passed out of committee March 9th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House unanimously on March 16th.

Summary –
The bill would set the B&O tax on manufacturing or selling electrolyzers and fuel cells at 0.2094% for ten years.

It would provide a ten year B&O tax credit of 1.75% of a business’s expenditures in research and development for these products, capped at the level of the tax due in that year, and allow carrying those credits forward to be applied against later tax bills. (This would apply to expenses for manufacturing tool and engineering design, as well as to other research and engineering activity; it wouldn’t apply to payments to other parties for research and development with the exception of “a public educational or research institution.” These credits could only be carried forward for a year.

It would provide a ten year B&O tax credit equal to a fraction of the property and leasehold excise taxes due on new buildings (as of 2023) primarily used in manufacturing these products, and the land they occupied, as well as on any increased property taxes resulting from expansions or renovations of such buildings. There would be an additional credit for a fraction of the property taxes on any new machinery and equipment (as of 2023) for manufacturing, research, development, and testing that would be exempt from the sales and use taxes under existing law. (As I understand the bill, this additional credit would be calculated as a percentage of the amount of a business’s activity that was taxable under the special B&O rate for electrolyzers and fuel cells compared to the taxable B&O value of all of its manufacturing. For example, if 30% of the business’s manufacturing and sales were eligible for the reduced B&O tax rate, then the credit would be for 30% of the property taxes on that covered research and development equipment.)

HB1728

HB1728 – Creating a statewide resiliency program.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Donaghy (D; 44th District; Snohomish County) (Co-Sponsors Rule, Reeves, Morgan, Ramel, Reed, and Leavitt – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on State Government & Elections March 14th and passed out of committee March 24th. Had a hearing in Ways and Means March 31st, and passed out of committee April 3rd. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate April 10th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House – Passed
Scheduled for a hearing in the House Committee on Innovation, Community & Economic Development, & Veterans at 8:00 AM on Wednesday February 8th. Replaced by a substitute, amended, and passed out of committee February 15th. Referred to Appropriations and had a hearing there on February 22nd. Replaced by a second substitute focusing the program on disaster resilience, and eliminating the repeating reporting. Referred to Rules and passed by the House March 4th.

Substitute –
This removed the provision about having the Department provide support to agencies, departments, tribes, and other stakeholders, and made some other minor changes that are summarized by staff at the beginning of it.

Summary –
The bill would have the State Military Department’s Emergency Management Division develop and administer a statewide resiliency program. The program would be supposed to include methods for ensuring ongoing coordination of state and local resiliency and response activities, including developing, administering, tracking, and communicating progress of resiliency efforts. It would coordinate funding to maximize investments from various public and private sources; serving as a public and private resiliency resource center; and enhance interagency collaboration, education, and outreach programs.

The Division would also create a coordinated long-term resiliency strategy for addressing the impacts of natural and human-caused hazards, including developing, coordinating, and communicating resiliency initiatives and projects across state agencies and local governments; conduct policy research and make recommendations on enhancing resiliency; coordinate research, data collection, and analysis; research economic tools to address resiliency; and recommend investments to mitigate risks from all hazards.

It would support agencies, departments, tribes, and other stakeholders in developing solutions that improve the resiliency of the state’s waters, forests, and other vital ecosystems to the impacts of climate change, and increase their carbon pollution reduction capacity through sequestration, storage, and overall ecosystem integrity.

SB5659

SB5659 – Allows gas utilities to develop a wide range of renewable energy projects, and creating a tax exemption for renewable gas.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Boehnke (R; 8th District; Tri-Cities) (Co-Sponsor Liias – D)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology February 14th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
The bill adds to the provisions of HB1619 in several ways.

Summary –
The bill would authorize gas companies to develop projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the combustion of natural gas delivered to in-state customers and from electricity generated from fossil fuels that’s used by retail electric customers in the state. They could seek to recover the cost of those investments in their rates through the UTC. Those investments might include residential and commercial rooftop solar, including battery storage and supplemental solar; community solar projects designed to offset carbon associated with the use of conventional natural gas; ground source heat pumps for district heating and targeted load reduction in new buildings used as a strategy for complying with the State’s cap and trade requirements; renewable gaseous fuels projects, including renewable natural gas and green electrolytic hydrogen, along with associated facility and pipeline infrastructure, upgrades, and improvements for industrial and heavy duty transportation; carbon capture and sequestration projects associated with natural gas projects and facilities; and research, development, and pilot efforts pertaining to nonemitting natural gas equipment and technologies. (Unlike HB1619, the bill would have the UTC consider purchases of energy derived from such projects outside the state and investments in them as being “in the state’s interest” if the carbon emissions from them were only booked and claimed in Washington. This bill also specifies that a gas company could claim investments in residential and commercial rooftop solar, including associated battery storage, and in community solar projects as reductions against its cap and invest carbon compliance obligations if it surrendered the renewable energy credits they produced.)

The bill would also create a ten year sales and use tax exemption for machinery and equipment used for generating renewable natural gas or connecting it to a pipeline. (The exemption would also apply to labor and services for installing that.) Renewable natural gas would be defined as what’s generated from “the decomposition of organic material in landfills, wastewater treatment facilities, and anaerobic digesters.”

It would authorize gas companies to propose renewable natural gas programs for the UTC’s review. If approved, a company could supply renewable natural gas as part of the natural gas sold or delivered to their retail customers. The environmental attributes of that renewable natural gas would have to be retired using procedures established by the Commission, though it could also approve procedures for banking and transferring those. (The Commission could also approve the inclusion of other sources of gas if the gas was produced without consumption of fossil fuels. I think this probably includes green hydrogen.)

Unlike HB1619, the bill would provide exemptions from any state or local restrictions or limitations on the use of natural gas in buildings where the amount of gas consumed in the building was equal to an amount of renewable natural gas acquired by the utility serving the site; there was a real estate covenant on the building confirming that only renewable natural would be provided to it; and the utility had certified to the UTC that only renewable natural gas would be “provided to” the building. It would allow dual fuel heat pumps using both natural gas and electricity to be installed in any building for use as a peaking resource alternative under CETA when natural gas space and water heating supplements electric space and water heat pumps in a way that reduces the consumption of electricity when ambient temperatures fall below 40° F.

SB5636

SB5636 – Allows all cities in counties using GMA planning to regulate forest practices on land within their boundaries if they adopt standards equivalent to DNR’s. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Senator Hunt (D; 22nd District; Olympia)
Current status – Scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Committee on Local Government, Land Use & Tribal Affairs at 10:30 AM Thursday February 9th. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1689 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Summary –
Currently, counties with over 100,000 people planning under the GMA and local jurisdictions within them where at least 25 Class IV applications for timber harvesting or road construction on forestlands were filed from January 2003 through 2004 have to adopt DNR’s forest practices regulations for various classes of forestland. (Class IV applications cover logging and road building on forestlands that are being converted to another use; on lands that aren’t going to be reforested because of the likelihood of future conversion to urban development; and on lands within the urban growth area with some exceptions.)

The bill would authorize any city in a county planning under the GMA to regulate all forest practices within its limits if it used standards equivalent to DNR’s.

HB1689

HB1689 – Allows all cities in counties using GMA planning to regulate forest practices on land within their boundaries if they adopt standards equivalent to DNR’s. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Doglio (D; 22nd District; Olympia) (Co-Sponsors Bateman & Pollet – Ds)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5636 is a companion bill in the Senate.

The bill would authorize any city in a county planning under the GMA to regulate all forest practices within its limits if it used standards equivalent to DNR’s.

SB5542

SB5542 – Regulating the sale of metal components from EV charging equipment to help keep thieves from stealing or destroying it.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Jeff Wilson (R; 19th District; Southwest Washington) (Co-sponsors Rolfes, Shewmake, Hunt, Claire Wilson, Cleveland, Lovick, Valdez, Lovelett, Nguyen, and Salomon – Ds; Fortunato, Padden, Gildon, Braun, and Lynda Wilson – Rs)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Consumer Protection and Business March 15th and passed out of committee March 22nd. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House unanimously April 6th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate – Passed
Scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Committee on Law and Justice at 10:30 AM Tuesday February 7th. Replaced by a substitute making a minor change in the term used for charging equipment and passed out of committee February 9th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the Senate February 27th.

Summary –
The bill would add electric vehicle charging equipment to the definition of “commercial metal property,” which includes things like catalytic converters and scrap wire, making it subject to a variety of existing regulations about sales procedures.

SB5362

SB5362 – Advancing the due date for the Department of Ecology’s report on the effects of the Clean Fuels program. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Senator MacEwen (R; 35th District; Mason County) (Co-sponsors Dozier, Short, Torres, and Lynda Wilson – Rs)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology on February 3rd. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
Given the emphasis in the bill’s findings on the increases in gas prices that might result from the program over its lifetime, it’s hard to resist the thought that its primary motivation might be the hope that an earlier report will be useful during the campaigns for the Fall 2024 elections.

Summary –
The bill would advance the date for the first report from Ecology on the activities of the Clean Fuels program, from May 1st 2025 to February 1st 2024. (An annual report would still be due in each subsequent year, but now in February rather than May.)

HB1659

HB1659 – Increasing oversight of the cap and invest program’s auctions and markets; report on transferring their management from Ecology to an independent body. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Dye (R; 9th District; Southeast Washington) (Co-Sponsor Klicker- R)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee oin Environment and Energy. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would have the the Washington State Institute for Public Policy report to the Legislature on transferring the regulation and oversight of the cap and invest program’s auctions and markets from the Department of Ecology to a new independent body. Its primary function would be ensuring the fair, efficient, and orderly functioning of the markets, and the report have to consider how to maximize its independence from other environmental regulatory agencies and ensure its neutrality with respect to the greenhouse gas emissions reduction policy outcomes the program intends to achieve.

The report would recommend criteria to consider in establishing such an office, agency, or entity. It would address how other jurisdictions with greenhouse gas emission trading programs balance public transparency with the interests of market participants in confidentiality; identify any policies they’ve established to prevent agency employees from providing advantages or insider information to market participants after leaving state service; and identify best practices to maximize public information and market oversight without detracting from market participation or efficient functioning. It would have to assess whether Ecology’s rules to guard against bidder collusion and minimize the potential for market manipulation are consistent with best practices in other jurisdictions with similar programs for balancing public disclosure and transparency with the need to guard against bidder collusion and minimize the potential for market manipulation. The report could include recommendations for changes to the Clean Energy Transformation Act or any of Ecology’s rules implementing it.

To provide accountability, oversight, and improve the program, the bill would have the State Auditor conduct a comprehensive performance audit covering its first compliance period by December 31st 2026. The audit would evaluate the program’s efficiency and effectiveness with the goal of making it work better, compare what Ecology was doing with leading practices and look for ways to obtain improved outcomes including reduced costs or better processes for delivering the same service. At a minimum, it would compare the program’s effectiveness and efficiency wiyh other programs’, including its costs per metric ton of greenhouse gas emissions reductions compared with those of reductions achieved under “other greenhouse gas emissions reduction programs,” the relative cost of program administration born directly or indirectly by regulated entities, and whether state oversight of the third-party auction provider is consistent with best practices. The bill would add an evaluation of whether the rules adopted by Ecology to guard against bidder collusion and minimize the potential for market manipulation have been successful to the existing requirements for a JLARC report on the program’s first five years by December 2029. It would require certain information about the program’s operations to be available through public disclosure.

SB5620

SB5620 – Creating policy for recovering utilities’ costs providing distribution infrastructure for commercial customers installing electric vehicle supply equipment.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Liias (D; 21st District; Everett) (Co-sponsor Boenhke – R)
Current status – Referred to Senate Transportation.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would require the Utilities and Transportation Commission to create a policy by January 1, 2024 providing guidance to electrical companies on rate recovery for the costs of installing, maintaining, and operating distribution infrastructure for commercial customers installing electric vehicle supply equipment. It would have to treat this infrastructure and associated design, engineering, and construction as it treated other distribution infrastructure authorized for rate recovery. By July of that year, each company would have to file a proposed tariff for the recovery of those costs for the Commission’s review.

HB1664

HB1664 – Ensuring rural representation on the Environmental Justice Council. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Goehner (R; 12th District; Chelan County) (Co-Sponsor Barnard – R)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Environment and Energy. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would require at least half the members of the Environmental Justice Council to be residents of a county smaller than 225 square miles or with a population density less than 100 people per square mile. (If one of these serving representatives no longer lived in such county they’d need to resign from the committee.)

SB5594

SB5594 – Allowing fully autonomous vehicles with requestable remote intervention on public roads, with nearly the same rules as for human drivers’. (Dead)
Prime Sponsor – Senator Boehnke, (R; 8th District; Kennewick) (Co-sponsors Nguyen, Liias, and King)
Current status – Had a hearing in Senate Transportation February 7th. Still in committee by cutoff. Reintroduced in 2024 and scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Committee on Transportation at 4:00 PM on Tuesday January 30th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –

The bill would allow a fully autonomous vehicle on all public roads without a human driver if:
1) It was licensed in the normal way, could carry out all the real-time operational and tactical functions required to operate in traffic (except for things like selecting a destination), and could comply with the traffic and vehicle safety laws and rules;
2) It would achieve “a minimal risk condition” to reduce the risk of crashes if a failure of the automated driving system rendered it unable to do everything needed to drive in traffic;
3) It would issue a request to intervene whenever the system wasn’t capable of performing the entire dynamic driving task, with the expectation that the person responsible for it would respond appropriately; and
3) It displayed the manufacturer’s label indicating that it complied with all applicable federal motor vehicle safety standards, including reference to any exemption granted by the NHTSA, when it was manufactured.

Operating such a vehicle on a public road would require submitting a law enforcement plan to the State Patrol describing how to communicate with a fleet support specialist available when it’s in operation; how to safely remove it from the road and how to tow it; how to recognize whether it’s in autonomous mode; and any other information the manufacturer or owner deemed necessary about hazardous conditions or public safety risks associated with its operation. Until 2029, it would require the owner of the vehicle to submit the most recent voluntary self-assessment that’s been provided to NHTSA to the Department of Licensing, and to provide notice to the law enforcement agencies with jurisdiction over the area where the vehicle will be operating “within 14 days of operation” including the owner’s contact information and a copy of the interaction plan. The owner would have to register the vehicle in the usual way, and submit proof of financial responsibility that was satisfactory to the Department showing that vehicle was covered by insurance or proof of self- insurance that satisfied the requirements for other vehicles, as well as carrying an umbrella policy providing at $5,000,000 of coverage per occurrence for bodily injury, death, or property damage resulting from the operation of the vehicle.

On-demand transportation service networks using these vehicles would have to be permitted to operate under the standard state laws governing transportation network companies, taxis, and other ground transportation for-hire of passengers . Fully autonomous commercial vehicles would be allowed, under the provisions for other commercial vehicles. Provisions for other vehicles that reasonably applied only to a human driver would be excepted.

If one of these vehicles were involved in an accident or a collision it would have to remain on the scene when that would be required of other vehicles, and the owner would have to report the event in the usual way. By February each year until 2028, the owner would have to submit a report covering reported crashes or collisions from the previous year to the Department and all municipalities where the vehicle had operated for more than five days.

The bill would give the Department of Licensing exclusive responsibility for governing autonomous vehicles, automated driving systems, and on-demand autonomous vehicle networks and would prohibit all other agencies and jurisdictions from having taxes, fees, or other requirements limiting their operations.

SB5579

SB5579 – Allows Ecology to stop enforcing requirements for reducing hydrofluorcarbon emissions if supply chain problems might impair state businesses or consumers.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Braun (R; 20th District; Cowlitz & Lewis County) (Co-sponsor Lynda Wilson – R)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology February 14th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 17th. Referred to Ways and Means.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Substitute –
This would authorize Ecology to grant variances from the requirements in these situations rather than allowing the department to simply stop enforcing them.

Summary –
The bill would allow Ecology to stop enforcing the current requirements for reducing hydrofluorcarbon emissions if it determined that supply chain problems or similar
disruptions threatened to impair businesses or consumers in the state, and that suspending enforcement of a requirement would mitigate the problem.

SB5570

SB5570 – Authorizing electric utilities to establish revolving energy efficiency loan programs.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Lovelett (D; 40th District; Anacortes) (Co-Sponsors Trudeau, Hasegawa, Keiser, Nguyen, Nobles, Pedersen, Randall, Rolfes, Saldaña, Valdez, and C. Wilson – Ds)
Current status – Had a 2023 hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology February 8th. Died in committee at cutoff. Apparently reintroduced in 2024, and had a hearing in that committee January 9th. Amended and passed out of committee that day; referred to Ways & Means.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate 2024 –
There’s a staff summary of the changes made in the amendment.

Summary –
The bill would create an Electric Utility Energy Efficiency Capitalization Grant program in the Department of Commerce, if funds were specifically appropriated for it. Electric utilities would be able to apply to the Department for funding to establish a revolving loan program making loans to low and middle income households for energy efficiency and weatherization projects, including repairs needed to achieve energy savings. A list of participating contractors would be provided as part of the loan application process, and a separate billing system or an on-bill repayment program would be provided. The loans would be interest free and secured with a lien on the property, and priority in awarding them would be given to properties in overburdened areas. The funds would be exempt from the public utility tax, and all loan repayments would have to be deposited into the revolving loan account.

Deferred loans for income-qualified customers owning and occupying their home could cover the full cost of a project. They’d have to allow repayment to be deferred until the home is sold, when the loan balance would be paid as part of the sales transaction; and would have to allow customers to qualify based on their payment history with the utility.

Forgivable loans could be made to property owners with income-qualified tenants. These would require an energy audit of the property. It would have to be continuously occupied by income-qualified tenants for five years after the upgrades; and the owner would have to keep the rent during that period within the fair market rent determined by HUD. If the owner failed to meet those requirements, the loan balance would be transferred to a new loan and become due on the sale of the home.

A utility could contract with a third party to implement the program, and could apply energy savings from cost-effective measures financed through a loan program toward achieving its conservation acquisition targets under the Energy Independence Act.

HB1619

HB1619 – Allows gas utilities to develop a wide range of renewable energy projects, and creates a tax exemption for renewable gas.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Fey (D; 17th District; Tacoma) (Co-Sponsors Duerr and Wylie – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 6th. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill? (May be NTIB…)
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
SB5659 adds some provisions to the ones in this bill.

SB5551

SB5551 – Expanding the Sustainable Farms and Fields grants program to place more emphasis on reducing livestock emissions.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Shewmake (D; 42nd District; Bellingham) (Co-Sponsors King, Warnick, Muzzall, Braun, Short – Rs; Wellman, Salomon, Van De Wege, Hasegawa, Nobles, and Saldaña – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks February 6th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would shift the current grants from the Sustainable Farms and Fields program for equipment purchases to grants for cost-share purchases; and shift recipients of its grants from land-owners to agricultural producers. It would shift the intended distribution of funds from one across crop types and soil management to one across commodities. It would allow conservation districts and other public entities to apply for grant funds to operate equipment sharing programs.

The bill would spell out that the current allowable uses of the grants include practices that reduce soil greenhouse gas emissions as well as those that increase soil carbon, practices that collect, treat, and store manure and agricultural waste to reduce emissions; practices that “increase sequestration in standing vegetation” as well as ones that increase it in soils; and practices that reduce the intestinal emissions of livestock.

It would require funds appropriated through the program for the specific purpose of improving and encouraging climate-smart agricultural waste management and climate-smart livestock management to be used for:
1) Cost-share grants for anaerobic digester development, including projects that codigest manure with other organic waste;
2) Technical and financial assistance for climate-smart livestock management practices;
3) Grants to research institutions for innovative research and for demonstration projects with greenhouse gas emissions reduction benefits, including dairy nutrient management projects;
4) Creating an ongoing advisory committee including specified stakeholders and administered by the State Conservation Commission and Department of Agriculture to inform the agricultural community about opportunities to participate in carbon emissions reduction programs, inform researchers and policymakers of practical implementation challenges, and guide these grant awards, and
5) Creating at least one position at the Commission and other positions as needed with expertise in livestock nutrient management and carbon markets to disseminate information and provide support to agricultural producers applying for funding opportunities.

HB1584

HB1584 – Planning for advanced nuclear reactor technology.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Barnard (R; 8th District; Pasco) (Co-Sponsors Fitzgibbon, Lekanoff, Slatter, Fey, Ryu, Riccelli, Berry, Donaghy, and Timmons – Ds; Dye, Ybarra, Couture, Schmidt, and Sandlin – Rs)
Current status – Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology. Had a hearing March 10th; amended to restore natural gas to the list of cleaner energy sources to be developed as part of the state’s clean energy strategy, and passed out of committee March 24th. Referred to Rules. Returned to the House Committee on Environment and Energy for the 2024 Session.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 7th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 16th. Referred to Rules, amended on the floor to add renewable gas and green hydrogen to the list of clean energy sources to be considered in the strategy, and passed by the House March 1st.

Substitute –
This adds a finding recognizing that long term storage of spent nuclear fuel is an unsolved problem and saying the State should actively advocate for resolving it. It also drops the characterization of the energy technologies it says the State should develop as “cleaner” and drops natural gas from the list.

Summary –
The bill would amend the State’s current statement of the principles guiding the development and implementation of its energy strategy to include “advanced nuclear reactor technology” in the list of cleaner energy technologies to be developed to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

HB1574

HB1574 – Expanding the Sustainable Farms and Fields grants program to place more emphasis on reducing livestock emissions.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Rule (D; 42nd District; Whatcom County) (Co-Sponsors Dye & Walsh – Rs; Duerr, Doglio, Lekanoff & Chapman – Ds)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources. Still in committee by 2023 cutoff. Reintroduced in 2024 and had a hearing in that committee on January 24th. Passed out of committee January 31st and referred to Appropriations.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

SB5562

SB5562 – Requiring steps to transition off natural gas.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Nguyen (D; 34th District; White Center) (Co-sponsor Lovelett – D)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology February 1st. Replaced by a substitute to match the changes made in the companion bill by the House and passed out of committee February 14th. Referred to Ways and Means and had a hearing there on February 20th. Still in committee at fiscal cutoff. Reintroduced in Ways & Means for the 2024 session.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1589 is a companion bill in the House.

Substitute –
The changes made in the substitute to match the House’s changes are summarized by staff in a couple of pages at the beginning of it. They include raising the threshold at which projects require labor standards from $1 million to $10 million, and requiring PSE to meet at least 2% of its annual load with conservation and energy efficiency resources, and to achieve “annual demand response” of at least 10% of its peak summer and winter loads, unless the UTC finds that higher percentages would be cost-effective.

Summary –
The bill would prohibit large gas companies serving more than 500,000 customers from providing gas service to new residential and commercial customers after June 30th 2023. (I’m pretty certain that Puget Sound Energy is currently the only company with this many customers.)

Every four years, the bill would require a large gas company to include a gas decarbonization plan for reducing its proportional share of the State’s greenhouse emissions reduction targets as part of its multiyear rate hearings with the Utilities and Transportation Commission. The plan would have to include programs to advance gas decarbonization measures for customers. It would have to prioritize investments that benefited low-income customers, vulnerable populations, and highly impacted communities; programs targeted to them; and outreach plans for engaging with them in every phase of the plan, including through incentives offered to multifamily buildings occupied in full or in part by low-income households. It would be required to include a portfolio of resources using alternative energy to the maximum practicable extent. It would have to meet a cost target which would be 2.5% of its approved revenue for each year of the plan. (It might include leak reductions approved by the commission if they demonstrated emissions reductions, whether or not those would produce the reduction targets in the plan.)

A plan would have to quantify the projected cumulative emissions reductions for each reduction period resulting from each portfolio presented; propose budgets resulting from each of those; quantify the cost of implementing each of them; project the annual emissions reductions that would result if each of them were extended through 2050; and describe the effects of the actions and investments in each one on the safety, reliability, and resilience of the company’s service. A plan would identify potential changes to depreciation schedules or other actions to align the large gas company’s cost recovery with statewide policy goals, including reducing greenhouse emissions, minimizing costs, and minimizing risks to the company and its customers. It would explain the company’s analysis of the costs and benefits of an array of alternatives, including the costs of emissions used in the calculations; describe the monitoring and verification methodology to be used in reporting; and include any other information the UTC required.

Starting in 2026, a combination utility providing both electric service to some customers as well as gas service to over 500,000 customers (ie. PSE) would have to file an electrification plan along with the gas decarbonization plan. It might include demand-side management strategies or transportation electrification plans, but it would have to include programs to advance electrification for customers, programs targeted to low-income customers, vulnerable populations, and highly impacted communities; and outreach plans for engaging with them in every phase of the plan, including through incentives offered to multifamily buildings occupied in full or in part by low-income households. It would have to include budgets; targeted numbers of installations; projected fuel savings; projected cost-effectiveness calculations, including the costs of greenhouse gas emissions and projected reductions in those; and other information deemed relevant by the UTC. It would have to meet the same cost target as the gas decarbonization plan would. It would have to provide documentation and data to show the plan was consistent with maintaining the reliability of the grid; and incentives to facilitate electrification, which might include programs for both new and existing buildings. (Products eligible for incentives would have to be Energy Star certified, if certification for that type of appliance existed.)

The bill would require these companies (ie. PSE) to calculate their reporting to the State about emissions from gas by including methane leaked from its transportation and delivery in distribution and service pipelines from the city gate to customer end use; emissions resulting from the combustion of gas by customers not otherwise subject to federal greenhouse gas emissions reporting (and excluding all transport customers); and emissions of methane resulting from leakage in the delivery of gas to other gas companies. They’d have to show their emissions baseline and projected cumulative emissions for the applicable emissions reduction period separately, and would have to show that the total reductions were projected to make progress toward achieving the reduction targets identified in the applicable decarbonization plan.

The UTC might approve, modify, or reject a proposed plan. It would take into account whether a gas decarbonization or electrification plan achieved reductions for each emissions reduction period; whether a plan demonstrated progress toward meeting its targets through maximizing the use of alternative energy resources; whether its investments prioritized serving low-income customers, vulnerable populations, and highly impacted communities; whether it resulted in a reasonable cost to customers; and whether it maintained system reliability. The commission would have to require a large gas company to achieve the maximum level of greenhouse gas emissions reductions practicable using alternative energy resources at or below the applicable cost target. (It might approve, or amend and approve, a gas or electric plan with greater costs if it found that the plan was in the public interest, costs to customers were reasonable, it included mitigation of rate increases for low-income customers, and its benefits including consideration of the costs of greenhouse gas emissions exceeded its costs.

Any combination utility with an electrification plan approved by the Commission would be required to get 40% of the total capacity and energy it needed to meet the requirements of the Clean Energy Transformation Act (aka the cap and invest bill) through power purchase agreements through which it bought energy, capacity, and environmental attributes from “resources” owned and operated by entities that were not affiliated with the utility, and that gave the utility rights to dispatch, operate, and control the resources in the same ways as the utility’s managing its own. [I think this subsection is supposed to read “renewable resources.] (The rest of the needed capacity and energy would have to come from resources owned and operated by the combination utility or an affiliate. Once the UTC approved a power purchase agreement included in an approved electrification plan, the utility would be allowed to set its rates to recover the operating expense of the purchases of “renewable resources” under the agreement as well as earning a return on those expenses at a rate no less than the authorized cost of its debt and no greater than its authorized rate of return.

The bill would require the UTC to start adopting depreciation schedules for any gas plant a combination utility had in service as part of considering a multiyear rate plan filed by a combination utility. The incremental depreciation for each year of the plan would be 1% of the utility’s gas revenue requirement for the preceding year. If the utility’s rate base for gas operations was less than or equal to 20% of the rate base for its electrical operations, and the utility chose to request the change, the Commission would merge the rate bases supporting gas and electric service in the next multiyear plan and adopt rates supporting recovery of the merged rate base. [I think this last provision means that if PSE’s gas business got small enough it could spread the costs of maintaining the gas system’s infrastructure over all its customers, not just the ones who were still using gas, and including the customers for electricity in the areas where it’s never sold gas.]

The bill would require a large gas company, with over 500,000 customers, to include community workforce agreements or project labor agreements, the payment of area prevailing wages, and apprenticeship utilization requirements in contracts with competitive bidding for projects costing over $1 million. It would encourage any entities providing retail electric service in the state to work with a large gas company providing service within their areas to identify opportunities for electrification and the provision of energy peaking service by the large gas company; to account for the costs of greenhouse gas emissions, set total energy savings and greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals; develop and implement electrification programs in collaboration with large gas companies providing service in their area; and to include an electrification plan or transportation electrification program as part of a clean energy plan.

HB1589

HB1589 – Requiring steps to transition off natural gas.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Doglio (D; 22nd District; Olympia) (Co-sponsor Fitzgibbon – D)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology March 17th. Replaced by a striker, amended twice, and passed out of committee March 28th. Referred to Rules. Sent to the X file April 17th. Reintroduced in House Rules in 2024; passed by the House January 22nd. Referred to the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology, and scheduled for a hearing there at 8:00 AM on Wednesday January 31st.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5562 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Changes in the 2023 Senate –
The striker requires a gas company with other 500,000 customers to offer incentives for electrifying to customers using fossil fuels, prohibits incentives for gas appliances or4 equipment other than backups for electric heat pumps, specifies that half the capacity and energy needed to meet CETA’s requirements are to be owned by the utility, removes the provision allowing a utility to earn a rate of return on power purchase agreements, and makes a number of other changes which are summarized by staff at the end of it. The amendments allow extending gas service to residential facilities that only use it for power during emergencies, and make a minor adjustment in the timeline for UTC decisions.

In the House – Passed in 2023
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 6th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 13th. Referred to Rules, replaced on the floor with a striker by the prime sponsor, and passed by the House March 6th.

Changes in the 2023 House –
The changes made in the substitute are summarized by staff in a couple of pages at the beginning of it. They include raising the threshold at which projects require labor standards from $1 million to $10 million, and requiring PSE to meet at least 2% of its annual load with conservation and energy efficiency resources, and to achieve “annual demand response” of at least 10% of its peak summer and winter loads, unless the UTC finds that higher percentages would be cost-effective. The changes made by the striker, which are summarized by staff at the end of it, exempted certain uses from the ban on new connections, and made many changes to the planning requirements.

The bill would require these companies (ie. PSE) to calculate their reporting to the State about emissions from gas by including methane leaked from its transportation and delivery in distribution and service pipelines from the city gate to customer end use; emissions resulting from the combustion of gas by customers not otherwise subject to federal greenhouse gas emissions reporting (excluding all transport customers); and emissions of methane resulting from leakage in the delivery of gas to other gas companies. They’d have to show their emissions baseline and projected cumulative emissions for the applicable emissions reduction period separately, and would have to show that the total reductions were projected to make progress toward achieving the reduction targets identified in the applicable decarbonization plan.

HB1553

HB1553 – Requires battery producers to participate in and fund a stewardship program providing for responsible environmental management of used batteries. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Street (D; 37th District; Seattle) (Co-Sponsors Slatter, Fitzgibbon, Ortiz-Self, Berry, Walen, Thai, Taylor, Ramel, Ormsby, Pollet, Doglio, and Macri – Ds)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Environment and Energy. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5144 is a companion bill in the House.

Comments –
A similar bill, HB2496, was introduced in the 2020 session and had a hearing in the House, but did not advance beyond that. A slightly revised version, HB1896, was introduced in 2022, eventually amended to create a study of the program rather than implementing it, and died in Rules. There are roughly 25 pages of details in the bill, and I haven’t tried to get all of them into the summary. (I’ve noted some of the changes from the 2022 bill in passing.)

Summary –
The bill would make producers responsible for creating and funding a product stewardship system for dealing with all used batteries under twenty-five pounds (with a few exceptions, including batteries in devices covered by the State’s electronics recycling program, ones that aren’t intended to be removed from products, and lead acid vehicle batteries). The bill would have people drop them off at “free, continuous, convenient, visible, and accessible” collection sites, and prohibit putting them in containers for landfills, incinerators, or waste-to-energy plants. (It would now allow them in mixed recycling.) The system would include education and outreach to encourage participation, but would now make retailers’ use of the materials producer organizations would have to make available voluntary. Batteries from producers who weren’t participating couldn’t be legally sold in the state.

Producers could set up one or more battery stewardship management organizations. An organization would have to have a plan approved by the Department of Ecology. Plans would have to include collection goals for their first three years “based on” the past three years of battery sales in the state by the producers participating in the plan, and a target to recycle at least 60% of the weight of collected rechargeable batteries and 70% of others. (These are ten percent reductions from the previous bill.) Plans have to include a system to collect charges from participating producers to cover the costs of the system, and structure the charges to encourage designs that reduce the environmental impacts of products. (They’d no longer be required to adjust the financial obligations of producers in proportion to their use of recycled content in batteries.) They’d have to indicate how facilities for dealing with the batteries would be managed with health and environmental justice standards broadly equivalent to those in the US.

There’d have to be collection sites for batteries under 11 pounds within fifteen miles for at least 95% of residents and at least one additional site in areas with over 30,000 people, as well as locations in all counties and tribal lands, and in special locations like parks and on islands. Collection sites have to operate on a free, continuous, convenient, visible, and accessible basis for any person, business, government agency, or nonprofit organization. Programs have to use the collection sites of any retailer, wholesaler, municipality, solid waste management facility, or other entity that meet the requirements for sites and request it, but retailers don’t have to provide collection. Programs have to reimburse local governments for the costs of any facilities of theirs used as battery collection sites for the program.

Plans have to include safety training procedures for collection sites about reducing risks of spills or fires, and protocols for responding to those, for managing damaged batteries, and for collecting them at specified sites or events in each county . There have to be at least twenty-five collection sites in the state for rechargeable batteries between eleven and twenty-five pounds and other batteries between 4.4 and twenty-five pounds, with reasonable geographic dispersion, including one in each county with more than 200,000 people. (They have to be certified to handle and ship hazardous materials. )

Plans have to manage batteries by prioritizing prevention and waste reduction first, then reuse when that’s appropriate, and then recycling. They can only deal with batteries in other ways, like landfilling them, after demonstrating to Ecology that these other higher priority options aren’t technologically feasible or economically practical.

Plans have to include various education and outreach activities for consumers, retailers, and the operators of collection sites, and management organizations have to survey the public about their awareness of the requirements at the beginning of the program in 2027, and every five years after that, sharing the results with Ecology. They have to submit an annual report to Ecology, including an independent financial audit, data about battery collections and recovered materials, and a variety of other information about the program, including steps for reducing the amount they haven’t recycled if that’s relevant.

After issuing a warning, Ecology can impose fines of up to $1,000 a day for violations of the law and of up to $10,000 a day for intentional, knowing, or negligent violations. In addition, management organizations can sue producers that fail to join a stewardship organization or other battery stewardship organizations that fail to meet their obligations under the act to recover the costs of dealing with those additional batteries.

Details –
The bill requires batteries to have labels disclosing their chemistry and producer; products containing batteries would have to certify they were labeled.

Plans have to be reviewed and approved by the Department of Ecology, which is to collect a fee from producers to cover the cost of administering the program. It’s to maintain a public list of producers and brands that can be legally sold because they’re in the program.

The bill allows manufacturers to request that submitted information be exempted from public records requests, and has the Director of the Department do that if it isn’t detrimental to the public interest and is consistent with the public records law. It authorizes the Pollution Control Hearings Board to deal with appeals.

HB1480

HB1480 – Spells out the types of hazard to be covered in State’s energy contingency plans.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Donaghy (D; 44th District; Mill Creek & Snohomish) (Co-sponsors Doglio, Ryu, Gregerson, and Ramel – Ds) (By request of the Department of Commerce.)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Innovation, Community & Economic Development, & Veterans January 31st; passed out of committee February 3rd. Referred to Appropriations.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill simply specifies that the Department of Commerce’s current planning for energy shortages or emergencies is to include analysis of human, natural, and cybersecurity hazards.

HB1509

HB1509 – Fair access to community solar. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Hackney (D; 11th District; Renton & Tukwila) (Co-Sponsor Doglio – D)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy January 26th. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would allow community solar projects to have an AC capacity of up to 5,000 kilowatts in investor owned utilities’ territories; those in public utilities’ territories would be limited to 200 kilowatts, unless the utility approved more. It would have the Utility and Transportation Commission adopt rules for a new community solar program by April 30th, 2024. Half of those projects would have to have low-income subscribers and low-income service provider subscribers. The program would combine community solar project managers, the people or company that managed the operation of a project and contact with the interconnected utility, along with community solar subscription managers that marketed projects, provided other community solar-related services, and enrolled customers or allocated subscriptions. They would have to register and file various information with the UTC, which could approve, deny or revoke registrations; they’d have to provide a performance bond to cover advances and deposits from subscribers. Investor owned utilities would be allowed to recover their costs in developing and implementing the program through their rates. Program managers would receive the renewable energy certificates generated by a project and could retire them, sell them, or retire them on behalf of subscribers.

The UTC would create consumer protection guidelines, require investor-owned utilities to file the legal documents for implementing programs, and maintain a publicly available queue of precertified projects in a way that protected commercially sensitive or competitive information. Project and subscription managers would have to file various information about projects with the Commission; collect information on financial benefits realized by low-income and low-income service provider subscribers; administer the project in a transparent way that allowed fair and nondiscriminatory opportunities for participation; and provide each subscriber with a disclosure form containing all the material terms and conditions of participation in the project. Disclosures would include the term of participation; provisions about the disposition or transfer of the subscriber’s interest, including any potential costs associated with a transfer; all charges including any penalties for cancellation; the billing and payment procedures; the projected percentage of the customer’s usage that will be allocated to the project and a description of the methodology used to develop that; an explanation of the subscriber’s relationship to renewable energy credits and of the responsibilities of the community solar project manager or community solar subscription manager, the utility, and the Commission; contact information for questions and complaints; and any other terms and conditions of the services provided by the subscription manager. They wouldn’t be allowed to use credit checks or sign-up fees to screen potential subscribers, or charge exit fees to customers who wanted to stop their subscription.

Managers could enter eligible customers in a utility’s net crediting program. Subscribers would get credits on their bills for their share of the project’s production minus a fee for the subscription manager, which would have to be a fixed percentage of the bill’s credits, valued at the total rate per kilowatt hour they paid the utility for power, including all charges for generation,transmission, distribution, taxes, and fees. A fee for the subscription manager, which would have to be a fixed percentage of the bill’s credits, would be deducted from that, but the low-income and low-income service providers would be exempt from program fees. If a project were undersubscribed the managers could roll the unsubscribed credits forward and allocate them to subscribers for up to two years; at that point, they’d have to get paid for that unsubscribed power at the utility’s wholesale cost. The utility could charge up to 2% of the subscription fee to the project manager or subscription manager as a a net crediting fee. The credits could offset any costs on the customer’s next bill except for the utility’s standard basic charge. Any unused bill credits could be rolled forward and used during the life of the project.

The bill retains the current provisions under which the WSU Energy Office pre-certifies projects; projects have two years after pre-certification to start producing power; and utilities choosing to participate in the program provide a one-time initial incentive payment of up to $20,000 to the project developer to cover the start-up costs attributable to its low income subscribers, plus some amount less than the installed cost of the project to provide direct benefits to those subscribers. (Utilities recover these payments through other customers’ rates.) The bill would have utilities provide virtual net metering for all new community solar projects, crediting customers’ bills for their shares of the power a project produced at the same rate they were paying for the power they used, rather than only for projects under 100 kWs of AC capacity.

HB1391

HB1391 – Creating a state-wide building energy upgrade assistance program.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Ramel (D; 40th District; Anacortes and San Juans) (Co-sponsors Doglio, Duerr, Berry, Pollet, Reed – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology March 22nd and 24th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House – Passed
Completed a continued hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy January 31st. Replaced by a substitute by the prime sponsor and passed out of committee February 9th. Referred to Appropriations, had a hearing there February 21st, was replaced by a second substitute, amended, and passed out of committee February 23rd. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House February 28th.

Substitute –
There’s a staff summary of the changes made by the substitute at the beginning of it. The second substitute specified that the program would have to include resources for renters and that its energy efficiency projects did not have to include weatherization; the amendment would make the bill null and void if it wasn’t funded in the budget.

Summary –
The bill would authorize the Department of Ecology to create a statewide building energy upgrade navigator program, in collaboration with the WSU Energy Office. The program would provide a statewide resource to assist building owners with electrification services and energy efficiency services and with funding for those, as well as providing other assistance in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, job creation, business opportunities, and workforce development in the sector. By March 1st, 2024, Ecology would be obliged to contract with an administrator or administrators, selected through a competitive process, to implement the program. Contracts could not be for more than five years, and would have to include sufficient performance metrics to let the department and the Legislature evaluate the program’s energy savings, greenhouse gas emissions reductions, consumer cost savings, wage and employment impacts, and customer satisfaction. The bill would convene a technical advisory group including a representative from each of a list of stakeholders to provide ongoing guidance to the program, including recommendations on continuously improving and growing it, addressing any gaps in its design and implementation, addressing split incentives, and incorporating the Department of Health’s environmental health disparities mapping tool into its work. The advisory group would provide an annual report on the program’s progress to the Legislature.

The program would have to provide outreach and deliver energy services to owner-occupied and rental residences, commercial buildings under 20,000 square feet; and single and multifamily dwellings. It would support energy efficient and emissions reductions alternatives for all types of fuel, and strive to cover all regions of the state. It would prioritize services to low-income households, vulnerable populations, and overburdened communities, including tribal communities, having considered recommendations of the UTC’s natural gas decarbonization study. It might dedicate some of its funding for these services. It would support accessible administration of programs authorized under the Inflation Reduction Act, and the integrated implementation of all relevant clean buildings programs funded by the state budget, including several currently described in the 2023 House Omnibus Appropriations Bills. It would implement a process in coordination with the Office of Minority and Women’s Business Enterprises to help customers find qualified energy contractors, including considering whether they met the program’s labor standards and reporting requirements.

The program’s outreach to customers would have to include creating and maintaining updated educational and marketing materials, including advice about all relevant funds and
financial assistance available from Federal, State, local, and energy utility programs. (It would be required to focus on this outreach about funding first.) It would also provide assistance with performing energy audits to provide recommendations to customers on a wide range of cost-effective energy and health improvements, including weatherization, appliance upgrades, electrification, smart meters, solar photovoltaic panels and other on-site sources of renewable energy, electric vehicle charging; and smart thermostats. It would provide community outreach in collaboration with Ecology’s programs to reach and serve underserved communities.

The program’s energy services for customers would have to include help in finding qualified contractors to implement audit recommendations; recommendations for programs that customers might be eligible for based on their income, and assistance with securing financing. Program administrators would have to develop community workforce agreements between labor representatives and contractors for the work performed on projects funded by the program, considering the size and complexity of projects, number of trades and crafts anticipated to be used, the availability of trained and skilled workers, and the location of projects. Any community workforce agreement would have to establish goals for labor hours or percentages of work to be performed by underrepresented groups, by local residents, and by state registered apprentices. They’d have to specify that workers performing work on projects under a community workforce agreement were paid a wage rate that was at least equivalent to the prevailing wage rate of workers, laborers, or mechanics in the same trade or occupation in the locality in which the work was being performed.

The program would also identify statewide workforce and contractor training needs and develop training. It might directly administer incentives and rebates for programs when directed to do that by Ecology, but would not provide any financial or technical assistance for projects including installation of new fossil fuel appliances. The administrator might develop a database portal to identify and track the locations of services provided, customer interactions, and performance metrics for completed work.

Ecology would provide a report on the program to the Legislature every other year, covering the implementation of the navigator program and community workforce agreements. It would include details on the monetary, greenhouse gas, and energy savings achieved; the savings to investment ratio achieved for customers; the wage levels of jobs created; the utilization of state registered preapprentice and apprenticeship programs; the efficiency and speed of delivery of services; and the public health benefits, including indoor and outdoor air quality improvements and increased access to cooling for climate resilience. It would also have to include recommendations for additional energy efficiency, electrification, and distributed energy programs for customers to maximize deployment of energy efficiency services, and to achieve higher rates of penetration and economies of scale through implementing multiple measures simultaneously.

SB5509

SB5509 – Creating a Washington State public infrastructure bank.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Kuderer (D; 21st District; Bellevue) (Co-Sponsor Lovelett – D)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Business, Financial Services Gaming & Trade January 31st. Amended to change the bank’s capitalization from an appropriation to a five year loan from the State and passed out of committee February 16th.
Next step would be –
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would create a State infrastructure bank once that had been capitalized with sufficient State or Federal funds to allow it to issue competitive loans and various legal processes had been completed, including the approval of its organization by the local and tribal governments becoming members. The bank would be governed by an operating board of nine directors, serving without reimbursement; five of them would be elected local or tribal government officials chosen by those governments, three would be appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate, and the State Treasurer would be a director. The Board would hire a salaried executive director, and the bank’s administration and operations would be carried out by the State Treasurer’s Office.

The bank would be authorized to engage in a lot of typical business activities, including buying and selling property, acquiring insurance, and issuing bonds (on its own behalf, not as State debt.) The State Treasurer and local or tribal governments would be authorized to invest in these bonds, in addition to private parties. The bank would make loans to state or local or tribal governments for infrastructure and economic development projects, and could collect fees or chargers it decided would help accomplish its activities from its member governments. (It would have a goal of providing 30% of its annual lending to support housing in low to moderate-income areas after it had been operating for five years.) The actual bill doesn’t list examples, but its findings list projects for the planning, acquisition, construction, repair, replacement, rehabilitation, or improvement of streets and roads, bridges, water systems, storm and sanitary sewage systems, solid waste handling, communications systems, housing, and other public infrastructure and economic development projects. The bank could provide technical or financing assistance to state, local and tribal governments for helping to implement their financing programs, and it could distribute surplus funds to them if two-thirds of the Board approved. It could enter into agreements with other banks, including the National Cooperative Bank, or trust companies, to deal with its obligations relative to these bonds, or any matters relating to the exercise of its powers.

The bill would include the bank’s financial, commercial, and proprietary information in the current exemptions from disclosure in the Public Records Act

HB1505

HB1505 – Supporting production and use of lower emission jet fuels, renewable fuels, and green electrolytic hydrogen. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Slatter (D; 48th District; Bellevue) (Sixteen co-sponsors)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy February 7th. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5447 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Summary –
The bill defines “alternative jet fuels” as ones made from petroleum or nonpetroleum sources that can be blended with conventional jet fuels without the need to modify engines or the existing distribution infrastructure, and that have a lower carbon intensity than the applicable clean fuels standard for diesel and diesel substitutes. (That’s based on gradually increasing reductions from their carbon intensity in 2017.) The bill would also require Ecology to “amend the energy economy ratio for alternative jet fuel relative to conventional jet fuel from the value of 1.0 to 1.3” within ten years after a facility capable of producing at least twenty million gallons of alternative jet fuel began operating in the state. That ration would then have to be reduced by 0.1% every three years until it was back to 1.0. (I’m not sure about the point of this, but I think it’s about creating a higher carbon intensity baseline for it under WAC 173-424-620, so it would be easier to get credits under the Clean Fuels Act for a given reduction in its carbon intensity.) Ecology would also be required to allow biomethane to be claimed as a feedstock for alternative jet fuel in the same way it was treated with respect to natural gas and hydrogen production.

Once the bill’s in-state production requirement was met, it would lower the B&O tax on its manufacturing and sales for ten years, from the standard B&O 0.484% tax rate on manufacturing to 0.275%. It would also provide businesses producing it in counties with fewer than 650,000 people or a business’s designated alternative jet fuel blender anywhere in the state with a credit of $1.00/gallon against the remaining B&O tax if the fuel had at least 50% lower CO2e emissions than conventional fuel. The credit would increase by 2¢/gallon for each additional one percent reduction in emissions, up to a limit of $2/gallon. Sales contracts with final consumers would have to “reflect” any bonus credits, and the bill would provide the same bonus credits for consumers using those fuels with additional emissions reductions for flights originating in the state. Credits could be carried over and used to offset taxes in later years.

The bill would require the Office of Clean Technology at WSU to convene an alternative jet fuels work group with various stakeholders to further the development of alternative jet fuel as a productive industry in the state. It would provide a report including recommendations to the Governor and appropriate committees of the Legislature by December of every even-numbered year until 2028.

The bill would create a statewide Office of Renewable Fuels in the Department of Commerce to accelerate market development with assistance along the entire life cycle of renewable fuel projects; and support their research, development, and deployment, as well as the production, distribution, and use of renewable and green electrolytic hydrogen, and product engineering and manufacturing related to its production and use. It would drive job creation, improve economic vitality, and support the transition to clean energy; further the development and use of alternative jet fuels; enhance resiliency by using renewable fuels, alternative jet fuels, and green electrolytic hydrogen to support climate change mitigation and adaptation; and partner with overburdened communities to ensure communities equitably benefit from these efforts.

The office would coordinate with a range of parties to facilitate and promote collaborations to drive research, development, and deployment of alternative jet fuels and renewable fuels including green electrolytic hydrogen; review initiatives, policies, and public and private investments for these fuels; consider opportunities for coordinating public and private funding; assess opportunities for and barriers to deploying these fuels in hard to decarbonize sectors of the state economy; request recommendations from the Washington State Association of Fire Marshals about national safety standards for them; develop a plan and recommendations regarding them for consideration by the Legislature and Governor, including project permitting, state procurement, and pilot projects; and encourage new and existing public-private partnerships to increase coordinated planning for them and their deployment. The Office could apply for Federal funds and other grants, as well as accepting donations. It would be required to collaborate with the work group and a long list of other agencies and interested parties. It might cooperate with other agencies to compile data on the use of renewable fuels and green electrolytic hydrogen in state operations.

HB1517

HB1517 – Promoting transit oriented development. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Reed (D; 36th District; Seattle) (Co-Sponsors Taylor, Ramel, Berg, Peterson, and Stonier – Ds) (By request of the Governor.)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Housing February 7th. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5466 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
Though Section 6(5)(b) of the bill says that certain of its restrictions on local development standards don’t apply to those contained in a shoreline master program, Section 9(3) seems to categorically exempt any multifamily, mixed-use or commercial development in areas near major transit from the State Environmental Policy Act.

Summary –
The bill would prohibit cities planning under the Growth Management Act from having any development regulations that would prohibit multifamily housing on any parcels where other residential uses were permitted within three-quarters of a mile from a major transit stop in an urban growth area. (The bill defines a major stop as one that is or has been funded for development as a ferry terminal, a stop for rail, for bus rapid transit or bus service that runs in HOV lanes, or for transit providing fixed route service every day at intervals defined by the local transit agency.) Any maximum floor ratio in these areas would have to include a 50% density bonus for housing for households at or below 60 % of area median income or for long-term inpatient care. Cities couldn’t enact new maximum residential densities in these areas. (They would be allowed to have higher or lower floor area ratios in parts of an area if the average maximum ratio of all the buildable land in it provided at least the required transit-oriented density, nothing had a floor area ratio less than 1.0, and nothing within a quarter mile of a rail station had a ratio less than 0.5.) These requirements wouldn’t apply to areas subject to a shoreline master program or critical area ordinance, to non-conforming parcels, or to those on a state or national heritage register, but even cities with existing regulations that didn’t meet them would have to enforce and apply those in a way that was “consistent with” the bill’s requirements. If these cities had not already adopted local antidisplacement measures as part of their mandatory housing element under the GMA, they’d have to take the steps that element specifies for identifying local policies and regulations that result in racially disparate impacts, displacement, and exclusion in housing with respect to these areas near major transit. They’d also be prohibited from requiring off-street parking as a condition for permits in these areas, unless it was for the exclusive use of individuals with disabilities.

The bill would allow local jurisdictions to categorically exempt multifamily residential development, mixed-use development, and commercial development projects in these areas from the requirements of the State Environmental Policy Act, if a project wasn’t inconsistent with the applicable comprehensive plan, and didn’t clearly exceed the density or intensity of use called for in the plan. It would prohibit home owners’ associations and other similar organizations from adopting rules that weren’t consistent with the bill’s requirements.

The bill would have the Department of Transportation create a new division, or expand an existing one, to provide technical assistance and award planning grants to cities to implement its requirements, provide compliance review of any regulations adopted in accordance with those, and mediate or help resolve disputes between DOT, local governments, and project proponents about land use decisions and processing permit applications.

In consultation with Commerce, the department would create a competitive grant program to help finance housing projects in rapid transit corridors. Grants would be available for projects within a quarter mile of a rapid transit corridor that met specifications for floor area ratios or net density minimums, produced at least 100 units of housing; and included a covenant on the property requiring at least 20% of the units to remain affordable for households with incomes at or below 80 percent of area median income for at least 99 years. The grants could be provided for project capital costs, infrastructure costs, and for addressing gaps in financing that would prevent ongoing or complete project construction; they’d be available to agencies, local governments, and developers. The department would be required to prioritize projects by occupancy date, and would also have to consider a list of other criteria.

The bill would allow money that was appropriated to the Growth Management Planning and Environmental Review Fund to facilitate transit oriented development to be used by Commerce for grants to support a variety of planning processes. It specifies a long list of criteria for prioritizing these awards; it also uses a somewhat different definition of “transit access” from that in other sections of the bill, including being within walking distance of a park and ride.

SB5466

SB5466 – Promoting transit oriented development. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Senator Liias (D; 21st District; Lynwood) (Twenty-one co-sponsors) (By request of the Governor.)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Housing March 16th. Replaced by a striker, amended twice, and passed out of committee March 28th. Had a hearing in the House Committee on the Capitol Budget March 30th, and passed out of committee on the 31st. Referred to Rules. Still in Rules at cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1517 is a companion bill in the House.

Changes in the House –
The extensive changes made in the striker are summarized by staff at the end of it. One of the amendments specifies that the Growth Management Hearings Board has to give substantial deference to a finding by Commerce of substantial compliance with the density requirements; requires Commerce to grant an extension from the requirements for any areas at risk of displacement; and removes the use of the multifamily tax exemption from the criteria for prioritizing environmental grants. Others limit the grant eligibility of projects with at least 100 units of housing to those with rental, shelter, or permanent supportive housing and make units with at least 30 units of owner-occupied housing eligible for the grants. The covenant for the homeownership projects could allow incomes up to 80% of the area medium income instead of 60%. Additional changes in another amendment are summarized by staff at the end of it.

In the Senate –
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Local Government, Land Use & Tribal Affairs January 31st. Passed out of committee February 7th, and referred to Transportation. Had a hearing there February 13th; replaced by a substitute; and passed out of committee February 23rd. Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor to make a few minor changes and passed by the Senate March 1st.

Substitute –
There’s a staff summary of the changes made by the substitute at the beginning of it.

SB5484

SB5484 – Creating a network of sustainable farms and fields advisors & making minor revisions to the grants program.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Shewmake (D; 42nd District; Bellingham)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks February 6th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would have the State Conservation Commission, which oversees the conservation districts, develop a network of sustainable farms and fields advisors. Groups of conservation districts would hire, host, and share their services. They would provide consultations and develop sustainable farms and fields plans for interested farmers and food processors, helping them reduce their carbon footprint by increasing energy efficiency, utilizing more green energy, sequestering carbon, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The advisors would also inform them about funding opportunities to help achieve these goals, including the Sustainable Farms and Fields grant program. A new staff member at the Commission would coordinate the program, including disseminating information about energy efficiency, climate-smart practices, and funding opportunities; applying for grants; and writing progress reports.

The bill would revise the Sustainable Farms and Fields grant program, shifting from allowing grants for down payments and purchases of equipment to allowing cost sharing for equipment purchases, dropping some details about equipment purchased with grants; and expanding and broadening the current language about the services to farmers the grants might fund.

HB1472

HB1472 – Dedicating the sales and use taxes on motor vehicles to highways, in several stages.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Barkis (R; 2nd District; Southern Pierce County) (Co-Sponsors Robertson, Hutchins, Walsh, Orcutt, Griffey, Goehner, Schmidt, Klicker, and Dent – Rs)
Current status – Referred to House Appropriations.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
See the Transportation section of the Topics index for several similar proposals this session.

Summary –
The bill would require the use tax revenue and the six and five-tenths percent sales tax revenue from new or used retail sales of a vehicle, including private-party sales, to be used for transportation projects, maintenance, and repairs, and for reducing the reliance on transportation-related debt obligations. (It would not include the revenue from car rentals.)

The bill would begin transferring an additional 25% of the sales tax revenue to a new account dedicated to these purposes in the 2027 fiscal year; then increase the percentages by 25% each year, beginning to transfer all the revenue in fiscal 2030. The use tax would be transferred in the same way, except that it’s described as the transfer of “additional” percentages. (I don’t see why, since it’s all going into a new account.)

SB5471

SB5471 – Allowing the use of E-bikes on certain trails and roads by persons with disabilities. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Senator Cleveland (D; 49th District; Vancouver) (Co-Sponsors Jeff Wilson – R; Shewmake, Randall, Lovelett, Valdez, C. Wilson, Dhingra, Kuderer, Liias, and Van De Wege – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Transportation January 23rd. Replaced by a substitute amending a different section of the code to extend the current rules allowing this for two years or until local planning adopts rules addressing the issue. Passed out of committee February 10th. Referred to Ways and Means, had a hearing there February 18th, and passed out of committee February 20th. Referred to Rules – sent to the X file March 10th.
Next step would be – Dead.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
Senator Cleveland sponsored SB5452, a more expansive bill on this issue, in 2021; it was converted to a study and passed. This year, she and Senator Wilson are also sponsoring a new version of that bill, SB5314.

Summary –
The bill would require DNR and Fish and Wildlife to allow people with a current parking
placard for disabilities to use Class 1 and Class 2 electric-assisted bicycles on the nonmotorized natural surface trails and closed roads that are under their jurisdiction and allow bicycles.

HB1381

HB1381 – Reporting on urban heat island effects on salmon, and awards for projects mitigating those.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Dye (R; 9th District; Southeast Washington) (Co-Sponsors Lekanoff & Pollet – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy January 23rd. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 16th. Referred to Appropriations, had a hearing there on February 21st, and passed out of committee February 21st. Referred to Rules. Returned to the House Committee on Environment and Energy for the 2024 Session.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
See also HB1166.

Summary –
The bill would require municipal governments in the most populated areas of the state, which operate under the NPDES Phase I stormwater permit, to monitor and report annually on the impact of urban heat island effects on the temperature of salmon-bearing waterbodies in their jurisdiction. Reports would have to include the amount of impervious surface and canopy coverage within the jurisdiction, as a percentage and overall, how those have changed since the issuance of the previous permit; the monthly median temperature of all waterbodies within the jurisdiction that have been designated as critical habitat for salmon, steelhead, or bull trout under the Endangered Species Act; how those have changed since the issuance of the previous permit; a narrative description of factors in addition to urban heat islands that may have had a measurable impact on those temperature in the report year; and a description of the Jurisdiction’s approach to reducing the impact of the urban heat island effect on its waterbodies.

Within three months after these annual report were submitted, Ecology would issue awards recognizing the jurisdictions whose work to address the urban heat island during the previous year best demonstrated innovation and achievement in a number of areas. There would be:
(1) An award for innovative urban forest conservation and sustainability programs designed to reduce power loads during peak heat and cold weather events, and documenting greenhouse gas emissions reductions, reduced stormwater runoff, and water quality improvements as a result of new urban forestry design and implemented practices;
(2) An award for the most effective vertical garden installation, or programs that produce significant adoption of vertical gardens, with focus on stormwater capture and use and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions due to reduced power demand;
(3) An award to recognize the innovative programs increasing the adoption of green roof technology, emphasizing stormwater runoff reductions, stormwater reuse, and local and sustainable fresh produce and fruit production in the most impacted areas of urban heat islands;
(4) An award for the newest and most innovative development of reflective roof technology, based on its effectiveness in reducing stormwater runoff temperature and reducing greenhouse gas emissions through lower energy usage;
(5) An award for the most innovative use of permeable pavement technology and its adoption in locations providing the most improvements in water quality needed to improve salmon habitat; and,
(6) An award for restoring streams from pipes and buried locations under the urban core to natural channels, restoring natural environments within urban canyons, and providing natural cooling and filtration of water within those streams.

Beginning in 2027, the Department, in consultation with Fish and Wildlife, could designate one or more jurisdictions as a “salmon-safe community” for that year, based on its achievements in reporting and monitoring complying with the letter and spirit of the bill; its objectively quantifiable progress in implementing the bill’s mitigation strategies and its achievement of measurable gains toward salmon recovery in the waterbodies in its jurisdiction.

SB5447

SB5447 – Supporting production and use of lower emission jet fuels, renewable fuels, and green electrolytic hydrogen.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Billig (D; 3rd District; Spokane) (Twenty-one co-sponsors)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy March 13th. Replaced by a striker and passed out of committee March 21st. Had a hearing in House Finance March 28th. Amended there and passed out of committee March 31st. Referred to Rules and passed by the House April 14th. Senate concurred in House amendments April 19th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Changes in the House –
The changes made in the striker in Environment & Energy are summarized by staff at the end of it.

The Legislative tracking page for the bill says that then it was passed “with amendment(s) but without amendment(s) by Environment & Energy in Finance. (I don’t understand this, since as far as I can see, the only amendment in Environment & Energy was the striker, and that seems to be what was adopted and then amended in Finance.) If I understand it correctly, one of those amendments would change the definition of the alternative jet fuels which are eligible for the tax credits from ones which met the current carbon intensity standard for the Clean Fuels Program as of the bill’s effective date to ones which had a lower carbon intensity than the conventional fuel for which they could substitute, according to a full life-cycle analysis done at the time of the application for the credits. The other would make alternative jet fuels produced at “a location that is either a historic cemetery or tribal burial ground” ineligible for the tax credits.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology February 1st. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 7th. Referred to Ways and Means, and had a hearing there on February 20th. Passed out of committee February 24th and referred to Rules. Replaced by a striker on the floor and passed by the Senate March 1st.

Substitutes
This would limit the carry over of credits to the next year, and make a number of other minor adjustments that staff summarizes at the beginning of it. There’s a staff summary of the changes made by the striker at the end of it.

Summary –
The bill defines “alternative jet fuels” as ones made from petroleum or nonpetroleum sources that can be blended with conventional jet fuels without the need to modify engines or the existing distribution infrastructure, and that have a lower carbon intensity than the applicable clean fuels standard for diesel and diesel substitutes. (That’s based on gradually increasing reductions from their carbon intensity in 2017.) The bill would also require Ecology to “amend the energy economy ratio for alternative jet fuel relative to conventional jet fuel from the value of 1.0 to 1.3” within ten years after a facility capable of producing at least twenty million gallons of alternative jet fuel began operating in the state. That ratio would then have to be reduced by 0.1% every three years until it was back to 1.0. (I’m not sure about the point of this, but I think it’s about creating a higher carbon intensity baseline for it under WAC 173-424-620, so it would be easier to get credits under the Clean Fuels Act for a given reduction in its carbon intensity.) Ecology would also be required to allow biomethane to be claimed as a feedstock for alternative jet fuel in the same way it was treated with respect to natural gas and hydrogen production.

HB1433

HB1433 – Adopting a standard method for use in programs for the energy labeling of existing residential buildings.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Duerr (D; 1st District; Bothell) (Co-Sponsors Ramel, Fitzgibbon, Berry, Reed, and Doglio – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology March 22nd and March 24th. 2nd Substitute returned to the House Committee on Environment and Energy for the 2024 Session. Amended to make labeling a local option and remove the licensing of home energy assessors; passed out of committee January 18th. Referred to Rules.
Next step would be – Action by the Rules Committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House 2024 – Passed
There’s a staff summary of the changes made in the Energy & Environment.

In the House 2023 – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy January 24th; replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee February 2nd. Referred to Appropriations, and had a hearing there February 13th. Replaced by a second substitute and passed out of Appropriations February 21st. Referred to Rules and passed by the House March 1st.

Substitutes –
This extended various deadlines by a year or eighteen months and specified that score reports to Commerce wouldn’t include the addresses of individual residences or the owner’s names. The second substitute in Appropriations made a few minor changes, and removed the language specifying that nothing in the bill prohibited jurisdictions requiring HERS scores at time of sale, or prohibiting requiring them as a condition for receiving efficiency incentives from Commerce.

Summary –
The bill would require the Department of Commerce to create rules for using the US Department of Energy’s Home Energy Scores as the primary system for assigning residential buildings scores evaluating their energy efficiency. (These DOE scores are based on an assessment of the building’s characteristics by a trained and certified rater, rather than on the energy used by its current occupants.) Cities and counties could promote or administer home energy score programs, require a score when a residential building is advertised for sale; or require a score to be eligible for Commerce’s financial incentives for efficiency improvements, but the bill itself wouldn’t require buildings to have scores.

The report on a building would have to include its home energy score, on a relative scale of one to 10, with 10 being best; its energy use per year by fuel type; the unit prices for each fuel used to calculate energy costs; the kilowatt hours per year of renewable energy it generated, if there were any; the annual cost of energy by fuel type and altogether; and its estimated current carbon emissions in tons/per year, which would have to be shown on a graphic scale from zero to 15 so a reader could visualize how a building compared to the worst and best possible greenhouse gas outcomes.

The report would also have to include itemized recommendations for priority energy saving improvements that had an expected payback of 10 years or less, as well as for additional improvements. (Recommendations might include upgrades to windows, and wall, roof, attic, and floor insulation.) The report would estimate the home energy score and the expected annual reduction in energy bills after itemized priority improvements were completed. (Reports would also include the building’s floor area, address, and year of construction; the date of the assessment; the assessor’s name, contact information, license number, and employer; a statement indicating that the report met Washington state standards for energy score assessments; and other energy efficiency and green building certifications for which the building had qualified.)

The Department of Licensing would create requirements for licensing home energy assessors by December 31st, 2023, and they would have to be licensed by the next September. (I’m not sure whether the bill’s language would require someone doing assessments using some other system to have a license or not.) The requirements for a license would include standards for training, including provisions for recognizing training provided by other organizations, as well as standards of professional conduct, practice, and ethics.

SB5464

SB5464 – Broadening access to the information and tools needed to repair digital electronic equipment. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Senator Stanford (D; 1st District; Bothell) (Co-Sponsors Hasegawa, Nguyen, Keiser, and Conway – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology January 31st. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1392 is a companion bill in the House.

Summary –
The bill says it would require manufacturers of digital electronic equipment that is sold or used in the state, (and parts for it) to make any parts, tools, and documentation required for the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of those available to any independent repair provider or owner, on fair and reasonable terms. (They could be available directly from the manufacturer or through an authorized repair provider.) (However, a later section seems to limit this requirement to what’s available to authorized repair providers.) If equipment contained an electronic security lock or other security-related function, then any special parts, tools, and documentation needed to access and reset those when they were disabled during diagnosis, maintenance, or repair would need to be available.

If manufacturers sold any documentation, parts, or tools to any independent repair provider in a format that was standardized with other original manufacturers, and on terms and conditions more favorable than those under which authorized repair providers obtained the same things, they’d be prohibited from requiring authorized providers to continue purchasing those in a proprietary format, unless that included documentation or functionality that wasn’t available in a standardized format.

Manufacturers wouldn’t be required to sell service parts that were no longer available to authorized repair providers; or to divulge any trade secrets. They wouldn’t have any liability for services performed by independent repair providers, or provide any warranty for those. Stuff for modifying equipment and for working on public safety communications equipment would be excluded. Violations of the requirements would be considered unfair or deceptive acts in trade or commerce and unfair methods of competition for the purpose of applying the consumer protection act; they would only be enforceable by the Attorney General under that act.

HB1392

HB1392 – Broadening access to the information and tools needed to repair digital electronic equipment.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Gregerson (D; 33rd District; SeaTac) (Co-Sponsors Ryu – D; Kretz and Dent – Rs)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology March 22nd.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5464 is a companion bill in the Senate.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Consumer Protection & Business February 1st. Replaced by a substitute, amended, and passed out of committee February 8th. Referred to Appropriations, and had a hearing there February 20th. Amended to require repair providers to make various information about security and privacy available to customers and passed out of committee February 23rd. Referred to Rules, amended to specify that the requirements don’t apply to vehicles, vehicle equipment or charging infrastructure, and passed by the House March 4th.

Substitute –
There’s a staff summary of the changes in the substitute, which reduced the requirements significantly, at the beginning of it. (The amendment just exempted medical devices explicitly.)