HB1216 – Combines Commerce’s Urban Forest Management Program with DNR’s Community and Urban Forestry Program; adds tribal lands and prioritizes environmental justice investments.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Ramos (D; 5th District; Issaquah) (Co-sponsor Callan – D) (Requested by the Department of Natural Resources)
Current status –
In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture & Natural Resources January 26th. Amended and passed out of committee February 3rd. Referred to Appropriations, and had a hearing there February 16th; amended again and passed out of that committee February 17th. Amended on the floor and passed by the House March 1st. The House concurred in the Senate’s amendments April 12th.

In the Senate – Passed
Referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources and Parks. Had a hearing March 16th, clarified by amendment in a very minor way and passed out of committee March 18th. Referred to Ways and Means, had a hearing March 30th, passed out of committee April 2nd, and was referred to Rules. Passed the Senate April 9th, and returned to the House for consideration of concurrence.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Summary –
As amended –
The amendment in Natural Resources specified that the bill doesn’t apply to lands designated as natural area preserves or natural resources conservation areas; or to land subject to the Forest Practices Act; timber and forestland taxes; or open space, agricultural, and timberlands taxes. The amendment in Appropriations would make the bill null and void if funding were not specifically appropriated for it. The floor amendment in the House allows private property owners to opt out of urban and community forestry programs.

Original bill –
At this point, the Department of Commerce runs an Urban Forest Management program under RCW 35.105 in consultation with the Department of Natural Resources, and DNR runs a similar Community and Urban Forestry Program under RCW 76.15. The bill rolls Commerce’s program into DNR’s, deleting all of RCW 35.105.030, expands the combined program to include tribal lands, and adds language about planning for and prioritizing environmental justice issues. (It removes port districts, public school districts, community college districts, irrigation districts, weed control districts, and park districts from the program; cities, towns, and counties are still included.)

Details –
The bill requires DNR to analyze needs and opportunities related to urban forestry in the state. It’s to use existing canopy and inventory data, and may acquire more if needed. It may consult with external experts, and must consult with appropriate tribes in watersheds where urban forestry work is taking place. This process is to identify and prioritize areas where urban forestry will generate the greatest benefits in relation to canopy needs, health disparities, and salmon habitat, using analyses and tools including the canopy analysis and inventory; DNR’s 20-year forest health strategic plan; health disparity mapping tools to identify highly impacted communities at the census tract level; and data to target program delivery in areas where there are significant opportunities related to salmon and orca habitat and health. It’s also required to do a statewide inventory of urban and community forests to produce statistically relevant estimates of the quantity, health, composition, and benefits of urban trees and forests. [The relation of this requirement to the ones at the beginning of this paragraph isn’t clear to me.]

The department would be required to ensure that at least 50% of the resources used in delivering the policies, programs, and activities of the program were benefiting vulnerable populations and were delivered within a quarter mile of highly impacted communities, scaling resources so the most resources were directed to the most highly impacted communities in those areas. This includes resources for establishing and maintaining new trees as well as maintaining existing canopy. (“Highly impacted communities” are defined as those designated by cumulative impact analyses done by the Department of Health, or in census districts at least partly on tribal lands. They can also be defined by analyses of “vulnerable populations”, identifying health conditions of communities as a factor of environmental health hazards and their disproportionate cumulative risk from environmental burdens due to adverse socioeconomic factors, including unemployment, high housing and transportation costs relative to income, access to food and health care, linguistic isolation, and sensitivity factors, such as low birth weight and higher rates of hospitalization.)

The department is also to provide technical assistance and capacity building resources and opportunities to cities, counties, federally recognized tribes, and other public and private entities in collecting tree data, and in activities developing and coordinating policies, programs, and activities promoting urban and community forestry. It may consult with Commerce about technical assistance, including on intersections between urban forestry programs and Growth Management Act planning. It’s to try to enable cities’ urban forest managers to access carbon markets by working to ensure tools it develops are compatible with urban forest carbon market reporting. It may use existing tools to help cities develop urban forestry management plans and ordinances, and there’s a list of twenty-one items the management plans and fourteen items the ordinances may include… [These are the same items Commerce was to consider including in the model plans and ordinances it was required to develop as part of its program; they don’t specifically include maximizing carbon sequestration and storage.] It must encourage communities to include participation and input by regional vulnerable populations on plans. It may create innovative tools to support urban forestry programs, including comprehensive tool kit packages that can be shared and locally adapted.

The bill adds improving human health, stormwater management, stream temperature and salmon habitat to the program’s goals; and adds some language about long-term care and maintenance to its descriptions of programs. The shift eliminates the Commerce program’s particular grants and competitive awards program, and its development of model plans and ordinances by the agency, it allows DNR to create an advisory body to fill the functions of the disappearing technical advisory committee from the other program.