Category Archives: Dead House Bills 2023

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

HB1404

HB1404 – Altering the State Building Code Council’s procedures and authority. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Goehner (R; 12th District; Chelan) (Co-Sponsors Chapman – D; Corry, Jacobsen, Griffey, Rude, Couture, Christian, Cheney – Rs)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Local Government. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5117 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Summary –
The bill would create a variety of new procedural rules for the Council. It would be required to discard any proposal that doesn’t include all the requested information, doesn’t have sufficient detail to be acted upon as of a deadline the Council sets, or that “exceeds the specific delegation of authority provided by the Legislature”. (It would not be allowed to rely solely on the broad delegation of authority in the current law.) A member of the Council would have to sponsor a proposal for it to move forward. The proposed text would have to be put in the Code Reviser’s format for finalized rules, and any proposed changes to that would have to be in writing, specify the legal authority for the amendment, and be available to all councilmembers and the public before a vote on a change could be taken. (The current process, in which members discuss and agree to many adjustments in phrasing and details in a draft during one or more meetings, would be explicitly prohibited.) The Council would be required to adopt policies to ensure it adheres to all of the requirements for rule making in the Administrative Procedures Act.

The bill says that if there’s “a concern” that the information provided in a proposal isn’t sufficient, inaccurately represents the actual impacts or costs, or if the assertions in the proposal “are questioned” by experts with knowledge of the industry or circumstances the Council “should” supplement the cost estimate information provided in a petition with independent research. At least two weeks before final adoption of nonemergency changes to the Code, the Council would have to make available for public comment:
(1) the currently required small business economic impact statement;
(2) the currently required cost-benefit analysis and the supporting information, for members to determine if the proposed rule is the least burdensome alternative for those required to comply with it and if the probable benefits of the rule are greater than its probable costs;
(3) any independent, third-party analysis the Council commissioned;
(4) any supplemental cost estimate information and industry specific information provided in the process; and,
(5) any findings, determinations or recommendations of the Council’s economic impact work group, consultants, or employees.
The bill says all this information should be available for review and vetted by Council members prior to a final vote adopting any rule modification. If someone working in an industry subject to regulation under a proposed rule raised an economic or cost-related protest or provided a cost or economic analysis that was different, the protestor could request that the Council provide a substantive response to raised concerns, including an explanation of provisions in the rule addressing, mitigating, or reducing the cost or economic impacts of the rule.

The bill would specify various criteria for appointments to technical advisory groups. If a member represented a specific interest or group, it would allow any person of that group to petition the Council to have that member removed from the TAG on the grounds that the person doesn’t have the qualifications or characteristics necessary to represent the interest or group. The Council would be required to remove any technical advisory group member it found lacked the characteristics and qualifications necessary to fill the position.

The Council would be required to identify the sources of information it reviewed and relied upon in the course of adopting changes to the Code, to include that information in the rule-making file, and to post the materials it considered or relied upon on its website for at least a year. It would be required to create a distribution list to notify specified agencies about proposed rules and the associated materials before public hearings on them. It would also be required to notify individuals involved in providing state subsidized housing that the proposed rule would increase the cost and complexity of building construction and identify when public comment will be taken. If a proposal would change the design of school buildings, OSPI would have to be notified. Every three years, the Council would have to submit a report to the Legislature identifying provisions in the adopted codes that generated conflict, summarizing the different perspectives brought before the Council related to the conflict, and how the Council addressed it.

The bill would make the appointment of the managing director of the Council subject to confirmation by the Senate, and prohibit anyone registered as a lobbyist from serving on it. It would add a representative from a utility to the Council. It would require training on ethics in public service and the Council’s rules of procedure for anyone serving on it.

HB1372

HB1372 – Creates a study of cost and emissions tradeoffs in electrifying state vehicles. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Dye (R; 9th District; SE Washington) (Co-Sponsor Ybarra – R)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on State Government & Tribal Relations. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would require the Department of Enterprise Services to publish an analysis of the cost asnd life-cycle greenhouse gas emission tradeoffs associated with state vehicle fleet purchases of electric vehicles every two years, beginning in 2024. It would include the purchase price of each type of electric vehicle added to fleet during the preceding two years, as compared to comparably sized internal combustion vehicles in the fleet; the average maintenance and fueling costs per mile for each type of vehicle; the purchase date and total number of miles driven for each type of vehicle and each vehicle during the period; an estimate of “the direct and indirect” greenhouse gas emissions associated with the use of each type of vehicle during the periods, considering at least the number of miles they were driven during the period, the direct emissions from fuel use, the life cycle emissions of the embodied carbon in the vehicle’s components, and reasonable estimates of the vehicle’s useful life.

To help track whether the total cost to operate the fleet is declining or increasing as a result of electrification, the study’s to include a best estimate of the State’s cost for owning and operating the fleet for each of the preceding two years, including the total cost for the ownership and operation of all the vehicles, and specific ownership and operation totals for vehicles in the fleet that are fully electric, have internal combustion engines, or use another fuel.

HB1342

HB1342 – Requiring environmental reporting on materials for public construction. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Steele (R; 12th District; Chelan) (Co-Sponsors Stokesbary – R; Leavitt & Lekanoff – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on the Capital Budget February 2nd. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB 5391 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
Compare HB1282 and its companion bill…

Summary –
The bill would create requirements for the modeling, measurement, and reporting of embodied carbon emission reductions from structural concrete, reinforcing and structural steel, and engineered wood in state-funded projects, including municipal projects and Department of Transportation contracts. (Buildings under 50,000 sq. ft. wouldn’t be included. )

Designers would have to do life-cycle assessments over 60 years of the embodied carbon in materials they decided were eligible for a project, after considering its requirements, including “project program, financial budget, construction schedule, product availability, and overall constructability.”

Beginning in 2025, the successful bidder for a project would have to submit environmental project declarations for at least 90% of the covered structural materials by weight or volume to the contractor at least a month before the substantial completion of the project. The contractor would be required to forward those to the authority that had awarded the contract and the Department of Commerce. After January 1st, 2027 the process would include submitting these to the contractor when the bid was submitted, and updating the information about the declarations and the actual quantities used before substantial completion.

The project designer or its life-cycle assessment consultant would be required to calculate a baseline estimate of the industry average for embodied carbon emissions in the project’s eligible products, using the emissions intensity factors in the most recently published environmental product declarations, and to include those in the construction specifications used for bidding those eligible products. (If there weren’t published regional or national industry-average environmental declarations for a product, they’d need to use verifiable data from a life-cycle analysis practitioner to estimate the baseline.) When the project was completed, they’d do an estimate of the embodied carbon in the actual products and quantities used in it, and then calculate and report an embodied carbon reduction percentage comparing the actual embodied carbon to what it would have been if industry average materials had been used. They’d also estimate and report the carbon intensity of the project, as a ratio of the kilograms of CO2 equivalents in the covered structural materials to the area of the project in square meters.

Commerce would have to create a new public database to inform project stakeholders of the achievable reductions in embodied carbon for specific markets, products and structural systems, and to inform future reduction targets and stretch goals. The database would include names and types of project, the awarding authority; project dates and zip codes, the type of eligible products in the project; the primary eligible products and primary types of structural systems actually used; a summary of the life-cycle assessment of the structural systems with the range of possible outcomes disclosed; the gross project area, excluding the site outside a building’s footprint; the project’s embodied carbon emissions as calculated with estimated quantities prior to bidding, and the estimate of those with with actual quantities at substantial completion; its estimated embodied carbon intensity prior to bidding; its as-built embodied carbon emissions, embodied carbon reduction percentage; and embodied carbon intensity; and a few other details.

The bill would also require the Department of Commerce to reimburse Washington manufacturers for half the costs of producing environmental product declarations, with limits of $15,000 per manufacturing location or batch plant and $45,000 for each manufacturer and associated companies. (They’d have to be product-specific, third-party reviewed, and completed by the end of 2025 to qualify.)

SB5345

SB5345 – Exempting school districts from the Clean Buildings Act’s energy performance standards. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Senator Schoesler (R; 9th District; SE Washington) (Co-Sponsors Padden, Dozier, Fortunato, Short, Braun, Wagoner, Warnick, Torres, and Lynda Wilson – Rs)
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.

Summary –
The bill would exempt public school buildings from the energy performance requirements of the State’s Clean Buildings Act if:
1) They were in a district in which half or more of enrolled children had qualified for free or reduced-price lunch in any of the previous five years, or,
2) The district had a state funding assistance percentage of 50 percent or more in any of the previous five years, or,
3) The district “uses or purchases electricity generated from renewable resources or nonemitting electric generation electricity.”

Since I think every district in the state uses or purchases at least some electricity generated by hydropower or other nonemitting resources, the current bill would apparently exempt all public school buildings from the requirements.

HB1224

HB1224 – Prohibits greenhouse gas emissions covered under the cap and invest program from being regulated through SEPA or the Shoreline Management Act. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative McEntire (R; 19th District; Southeast Washington) (Co-Sponsors Graham, Dye and Eslick – Rs)
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 prohibit greenhouse gas emissions that would be treated as covered emissions under the cap and invest program, “including the covered emissions associated with feedstocks or material inputs used by an entity or products produced by an entity,” from being subject to evaluation under the State Environmental Policy Act, and would prohibit them from being used as the basis for the imposition of SEPA mitigation requirements or the denial of a permit through SEPA. It would also specify that submitting compliance instruments to the Department of Ecology equivalent to the covered emissions in the event that a proposed action is permitted and implemented as proposed satisfies any potential consideration of the public interest in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the action under the Shoreline Management Act.

HB1223

HB1223 –Prohibiting a state agency or political subdivision of the state from considering the state’s greenhouse gas limits in individual project decision making or other regulatory purposes. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative McEntire (R; 19th District; Southeast Washington) (Co-Sponsors Dye and Eslick – Rs)
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 findings say that the bill would explicitly forbid state agencies from using the aggregate state greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets in any consideration of individual permit applications. (In fact, as I read it, it’s actually drafted in a considerably more expansive way. It amends the section of the current law establishing the limits to say:

Nothing in this section creates authority for a state agency or political subdivision of the state to rely upon or consider the limits established in [the subsection setting the limits] for purposes of individual project permit decision making or other regulatory purposes.

HB1193

HB1183 – Prohibiting the Building Code Council from restricting the use of natural gas or natural gas appliances in residential construction. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Dye (R; 9th District; Southeast Washington) (Co-Sponsors Goehner & Corry – Rs)
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.

Summary –
The bill would prohibit the State Building Code Council from restricting the use of natural gas or natural gas appliances in residential construction unless the Legislature had explicitly authorized such a restriction. It would remove helping to “achieve the broader goal of building zero fossil-fuel greenhouse gas emission homes and buildings” from the list of the Legislature’s standards the Council “shall follow” in developing the Energy Code. It would specify that the current requirement that the Energy Code must achieve a 70 percent reduction in annual net energy consumption from the 2006 Code by 2031 does not authorize the Council to consider greenhouse gas emissions in any decisions adopting standards or requirements. It specifies that the legislation establishing the State’s limits for greenhouse gas reduction does not create any authority for the Council to rely on or consider those limits in developing the building code or the energy code. It prohibits the Council from adopting any rules to implement the provisions of the 2021 Code that limit the use of natural gas in buildings or that favor the use of electric appliances over natural gas appliances in buildings. (It actually would also no longer allow the Council to adopt minimum performance standards and requirements for construction and materials, consistent with accepted standards of engineering, fire and life safety; or for making buildings accessible to and usable by physically disabled persons.)

HB1190

HB1190 – Changing the uses of the revenue from the Climate Commitment Act. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Dye (R; 9th District; SE Washington)
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.

Summary –
The bill would dedicate the revenue from the Climate Commitment Act (aka the cap and invest bill) to a new Outdoor Recreation and Climate Adaptation Account, rather than to the Climate Commitment Account and the Natural Climate Solutions Account established in the Act. (It would eliminate those accounts.)

It would require $125 million each biennium from the new account to go to the Wildfire Response, Forest Restoration, and Community Resilience Account. (Those funds must currently be used for fire preparedness and prevention activities; at least 25% of them must go to “forest health activities” and at least 25% of them must go to “community resilience activities”.) In addition, this bill would declare the Legislature’s intent to have at least $10 million of that money each biennium spent on forest riparian easements. It would also authorize spending it on grants and loans to small forestland owners for activities that increase carbon sequestration; on the Family Forest Fish Passage Program; and on a new grant program investing in institutions and infrastructure that make timber and farming towns sustainable and vibrant, administered by the Community Economic Revitalization Board.

Additional funds from that account could be transferred to the state Drought Preparedness and Response Account and spent on drought resilience investments that contribute to climate change adaptation. Funds could be spent on flood risk mitigation investments that contribute to climate change adaptation, specifically projects to reduce flood damage and improve aquatic species’ habitat in the basins most at risk of flooding; fund established flood control authorities to improve floodplains and protection infrastructure; or fund water supply projects to secure the agricultural industry against climate risks. They could be spent on Puget Sound water quality investments, including assistance in updating required pollution controls. They could be spent on outdoor recreation enhancement and amenities, including state and local outdoor recreation programs, activities, and infrastructure. They could provide grants to support marinas in compliance with measures protecting aquatic environments or water quality permits, and on grants to replace or add buoys at locations that appropriately balance environmental protection and the needs of on-water recreation. They could fund grants to improve equitable access to local trails and trail connectivity. They could be spent on stormwater investments that are helpful to salmon survival. They could be spent to support efforts to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change affecting Indian tribes, and the bill would declare the Legislature’s intent to dedicate at least $50 million from the account each biennium for that, and at least $50 each biennium to decarbonization of medium and heavy duty vehicles in a technology-neutral way.

HB1183

HB1183 – Prohibiting Washington from adopting California vehicle emissions standards. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Dye (R; 9th District; Southeast Washington)
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.

Summary –
The bill would repeal the laws authorizing the Department of Ecology to adopt rules to implement California’s motor vehicle emission standards and to adopt rules for the disclosure of the greenhouse gas emissions of new vehicles. It would specify that the Department has no authority to adopt any California vehicle emissions standards.

HB1166

HB1166 – Creates a water quality trading program to help Clean Water Act permittees meet maximum daily temperature discharge limits. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Dye (R; 9th District; Southeast Washington)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy January 16th. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
See also HB1381.

Summary –
The bill would require the Department of Ecology to creates a “watershed-based water quality trading program” in which parties with total maximum daily temperature load limits on discharges contributing to raising the heat of water bodies would be allowed to continue to exceed their local limit by reducing heat contributions elsewhere in the watershed. The Department would be required to offer incentives whenever feasible for improvements made by or on behalf of the permittee in the built environment or that otherwise address the urban heat island effect on waters of the state. (There’s a summary of the permit rules about this issue in the staff report for HB1381.)

Though the bill refers to “urban heat island effects,” I think it’s probably reasonable to assume it’s also a response to the EPA’s 2021’s imposition of total maximum daily load limits for temperature in water discharges to the Columbia and the Snake, in Representative Dye’s part of the state.)

HB1164

HB1164 – Creates a producer responsibility program for appliance refrigerants and insulating foam.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Doglio (D; 22nd District; Olympia) (Co-Sponsor Fitzgibbon )
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy February 16th. Still there at cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would make the parties categorized as producers responsible for creating and funding a stewardship system for dealing with the refrigerants and insulating foam in a wide range of used residential, commercial, and institutional appliances. (It excludes appliances over 1,000 pounds, those that are integral parts of structures, like ice rink refrigeration systems and commercial or multifamily central air conditioning systems, and the air conditioners in vehicles and other mobile applications.) Producers would have to participate in a stewardship organization with a plan to sell covered appliances in the state. The Department of Ecology would implement the program, approve plans, set fees to recover its administrative costs from producers, and enforce the bill’s requirements.

Plans would need to be submitted by 2027 and include methods for achieving the bill’s performance goals; education and outreach plans for retailers and consumers; mechanisms for collecting covered appliances and paying the plan’s financial incentives for turning them in; describe how the program will use consistent best environmental practices in managing pieces of collected appliances; identify brokers, transporters, processors, and facilities to be used by the program; and describe the methods for financing it, including modulating producers’ fees to encourage recycling, resource conservation, the use of low emission refrigerants, and other environmental goals. (The bill exempts an organization’s receipts from its charges for producer members from the B&O tax.) After five years Ecology could require programs that were not meeting performance goals to submit revised plans.

The bill’s performance requirements begin at different levels in 2027 and 2028, between 30% and 75% of the in-state sales for different categories of appliances in baseline years set by Ecology. They increase by 5% a year until they reach 70% to 90%, depending on the category.

Stewardship organizations would have to provide for the free collection of covered appliances directly or at sites, including at least one permanent site in each county. They’d need to provide payments to consumers (in addition to any energy efficiency or utility incentives) that Ecology agreed were sufficient to incentivize the use of the program and to discourage illegal dumping or venting of refrigerants or other pollutants. They’d be required to reimburse local governments for the costs of using a local facility or solid waste handling site as a collection location. Retailers would have to make information provided by organizations about the program available to customers, and could choose to provide collection sites.

There are various reporting requirements, and a provision for maintaining the confidentiality of submitted information. Ecology could take a variety of steps to deal with organizations that were not meeting their obligations, including impose fines of up to $1,000 per violation per day, after a warning, and up to $10,000 per violation per day for the second and each subsequent violation. Appeals would be handled by the Pollution Control Hearings Board.

HB1123

HB1123– Authorizing tribes or counties to prohibit local siting of a solar or wind project by passing a resolution saying they would prefer a nuclear plant. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Dye (R; 9th District; Southeast Washington) (Co-Sponsor Klicker – R)
Current status – Still in the House Committee on Environment & Energy at cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
The bill would prohibit the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council from recommending the siting of a wind or solar project in a county or “affected tribal area” if the county commissioners or tribal council passed a resolution saying the community or the tribe would prefer the local siting of a nuclear energy facility. (It would also prohibit the Governor from approving an application for certification of a wind or solar energy facility if such a resolution had been passed.)