SB6092 – Requiring large businesses to report all their associated greenhouse gas emissions.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Shewmake (D; 42nd District; Bellingham) (Co-Sponsor Nguyen)
Current status – Had a hearing in the the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology January 17th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee January 30th. Referred to Ways & Means; scheduled for a hearing there at 9:00 AM on Saturday February 3rd.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

In the Senate –
Senator Nguyen’s substitute removed the reporting requirements and replaced them with a report on the SEC’s climate-related disclosure rules and whether those disclosures would be sufficient to assess compliance with Washington’s policies.

Summary
The bill would require entities doing business in the state and having total annual revenues over $1 billion to report their Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions to Ecology, beginning in October 2026. (Scope 1 emissions are defined as the direct emissions from any sources they own or directly control, regardless of location, and including emissions from fuel combustion. Scope 2 emissions would be the indirect emissions from electricity they purchased and used anywhere.) Starting in October 2027, they would have to report their Scope 3 emissions, the other indirect emissions associated with their activities regardless of location, including emissions associated with their supply chains, business travel, employee commutes, procurement, waste, and water usage. This would include the emissions from the use of products sold by the oil, gas, coal, and natural gas industries.

Ecology would adopt guidelines for the reporting, incorporating the greenhouse gas accounting and reporting standards and the methods developed by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development to the extent that was practical. (Those include provisions for using industry averages and proxy data for Scope 3 emissions.) The Department would consult with stakeholders and other reporting entities that have demonstrated leadership in the disclosure and reduction of full-scope greenhouse gas emissions. It would have to investigate the availability of data and generally accepted protocols for estimating the carbon intensity of reporting entities’ operations, and if sufficient data and accepted protocols for estimating those were available, it would have to amend the guidelines to require including that information after October 2028. (It would be required to align the reporting timelines and required information with those of other Federal and state emissions reductions laws and policies to the extent that was possible; it might revise the guidelines from time to time to be consistent with protocols that entities follow for reporting in other jurisdictions. A report would have to be accompanied by an analysis from an independent, third-party auditor who had found it to be complete and accurate, or by a filed emissions disclosure under Section 38532 of California’s health and safety code, which includes an audit. (The bill currently has a typo with an incorrect section number.) Ecology would develop a website to make them easily accessible by the public.

Where a reporting entity failed to provide a required report on time, provided an incomplete report, or provided a report containing inaccurate information as determined by the independent auditor, the department would post a notice about that on the program’s website. The bill doesn’t say anything about penalties for these problems, though it would add a chapter to the Environmental Health and Safety laws so it’s possible something in those would cover that…