Category Archives: Out of Committee – Opposite House -2023

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.

HB1282

HB1282 – Requiring environmental and labor reporting on materials for public building construction and renovation.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Duerr (D; 11th District; Bothell) (Co-Sponsor Hackney – D)
(By request of the Department of Commerce.)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology March 15th, replaced by a striker and passed out of committee March 21st. Had a hearing in Ways and Means March 28th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5322 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments –
This is a somewhat revised version of Representative Duerr’s HB1103, which was introduced in 2021, and then reintroduced in Appropriations in 2022.
See also HB1342 in this session.

Changes in the Senate –
The striker changed the number of labor representatives in the work group from one to three and made a number of other minor changes that are summarized by staff at the end of it.

In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Capital Budget February 2nd; replaced by a  substitute making some small changes which are summarized by staff at the beginning of it, and passed out of committee February 16th. Referred to Rules; replaced by a striker on the floor that removed the requirement for reporting wood sourcing information and made some other small changes that are summarized by staff at the end of that; and passed by the House March 8th.

Summary –
The bill would require public institutions of higher educations’ and state agencies’ contracts for construction and renovation projects to require reports of environmental information by cost of certain construction materials for buildings over 50,000 sq.ft., and additional information about labor standards in producing the materials for buildings over 100,000 sq ft. It would cover structural concrete, reinforcing and structural steel, and engineered wood products; they’d be due before substantial completion of a project. Firms that were selected for projects would have to provide data on quantities of covered products, current environmental product declarations for at least 90% of the value of those; any completed health product declarations; manufacturers’ names and locations; any supplier codes of conduct, and any certifications of firms by the Office of Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises. They’d have to ask their suppliers of each covered product in the larger projects for the names and locations of the actual production facilities and a specified report on working conditions for all employees at those, or the steps taken to reasonably obtain that data. (However, they wouldn’t be required to verify any information provided by suppliers, and they’d be exempted from requesting information about working conditions that would cause a significant delay in completion, a significant increase in overall project cost, or result in only one supplier being able to provide the product.)

By July 1, 2024, specifications for a project contract would only be allowed to include performance-based specifications for structural concrete unless that wasn’t practicable. The bill would continue the public database of provided data that was funded in the 2021-2023 budget, and publish the global warming potentials reported in the environmental product declarations. Commerce would have to further elaborate covered product definitions; develop measurement and reporting standards to ensure that data was consistent and comparable; as well as creating model language for specifications, bid documents, and contracts to support the implementation of the reporting requirements. The department would also produce an educational brief providing an overview of embodied carbon; describing the appropriate use of environmental product declarations, including the preconditions needed for them to be comparable; outlining reporting standards, including covered product definitions, standards for reporting quantities, and working conditions; describing the data collection and reporting required by the bill; providing instructions for the use of the database; and listing applicable product category rules for covered products.

If funds were appropriated for it, the Department of Commerce would be authorized to provide financial assistance to small businesses to help offset the costs of producing environmental product declarations and reducing embodied carbon in the built environment, while ensuring they weren’t put at a competitive disadvantage in state contracting as a result of the bill’s requirements.

It would require Commerce to convene a Buy Clean and Buy Fair workgroup with representatives from a specified list of stakeholders to identify opportunities for and barriers to growing the use and production of low carbon materials, promoting high labor standards in manufacturing, and preserving and expanding low carbon materials manufacturing in the state. The group would consider state and domestic supply of raw materials and other supply chain challenges, regulatory barriers, competitiveness of local and domestic manufacturers, costs, and data availability from local, state, national, and foreign product suppliers. It would identify opportunities to encourage the continued conversion to lower carbon cements. By September 2025, it would submit a report on policy recommendations to the Legislature and the Governor. The report would summarize data collected through the bill and other previous projects, make recommendations for improving environmental production declaration data quality and for ways of mitigating Scope 2 emissions through green power purchases, identify barriers and opportunities to the effective use of the database and collected data, and survey the regulatory landscape to identify areas of alignment and discrepancy between local, state, federal, and private policy on embodied carbon and identify opportunities to promote consistency across policies, rules, and regulations.

SB5094

SB5094 – Adding a climate resilience element to water system plans.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Rolfes (D; 23rd District; Kitsap County)
Current status – Referred to the House Committee on Environment and Energy. Had a hearing March 20th and passed out of committee March 23rd. Referred to Appropriations.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks January 30th. Replaced by a substitute delaying the requirement by a year and passed out of committee February 2nd; referred to Ways and Means. Had a hearing there on February 22nd; passed out of committee February 24th and referred to Rules. Passed by the Senate March 7th.

Summary –
After June 30th 2024, water system plans for Group A community public water systems serving 1,000 or more connections would have to include a climate resilience element. These systems would be required to determine which extreme weather events pose significant challenges to their system and build scenarios to identify potential impacts; to assess critical assets and the actions necessary to protect the system from the consequences of extreme weather events; and to develop reports on the costs and benefits of the system’s risk reduction strategies and its capital project needs.

The Department of Health would update its water system planning guidebook to assist water systems in implementing the requirement, and would provide technical assistance to systems based on their size, location, and water source, by providing references to existing State or Federal risk management, climate resiliency, or emergency management and response tools that might be used to satisfy the requirements. (If funds were appropriated, the University of Washington climate impacts group would assist the department in the development of such tools.)

The bill would also amend the water system acquisition and rehabilitation program, dropping the Public Works Board and the Department of Commerce as joint administrators with the Department of Health. The program would now be allowed to make loans as well as grants. Climate readiness projects, including the planning the bill requires and actions to protect a water system from extreme weather events, including infrastructure and design projects, would be eligible for financial assistance from the program.

HB1012

HB1012 – Creating an extreme weather response grant program.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Leavitt (D; 28th District; SW Pierce County) (Co-Sponsor Rep. Robertson – R)
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. Reintroduced in the House for the 2024 Session, sent to Rules, and passed by the House on January 8th. Referred to the Senate Committee on State Government & Elections, and scheduled for a hearing there at 1:30 PM on Tuesday January 30th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the House  2024 – Passed

In the House  2023 – Passed
Passed out of the House Committee on Innovation, Community & Economic Development, & Veterans January 13th ; had a hearing in Appropriations on January 30th. Amended and passed out of committee February 16th. Referred to Rules, and passed by the House February 28th.

Changes in Appropriations –
The amendment would narrow eligibility for the grants to areas where populations face “combined, multiple environmental harms and health impacts”,  and widen the definition of the people they might be used to benefit from those who are “socially vulnerable” to those who are “vulnerable” more generally.

Summary –
Subject to appropriation, the bill would have the State Military Department create a grant program to help cities, counties and towns that have emergency management organizations, and tribes, meet the costs of responding to community needs during periods of extremely hot or cold weather or in periods with severe poor air quality from wildfire smoke. Recipients would have to demonstrate that they lacked the local resources to address these needs and that the costs were incurred for the benefit of vulnerable populations.

Grants could be awarded for establishing and operating warming and cooling centers, as well as transporting people and their pets to them, and providing facilities for pets in them; purchasing fans or other supplies for cooling congregate living settings; providing emergency temporary housing such as rented hotel rooms; and other activities the department determined were necessary for life safety during these periods.