Civic Action Team 2023 Legislative Recap

This year was a long session with three budgets and the first installment of Climate Commitment Act pollution money, a new revenue source for climate change mitigation and resilience. This is what we anticipated. So, how’d it shake out?

Climate in the Growth Management Act

Unlike last year’s absurd 11th hour failure, this year Climate in the GMA (HB 1181) successfully passed. Just in time! It can now be incorporated by the state’s 11 largest counties as they begin their next comprehensive plan update cycles. The bill’s policies will reduce emissions from vehicles, in part by promoting housing near transit, and include planning for climate hazards and community resiliency, as well as a definition of environmental justice.

Housing

With a growing state population, rising housing costs and rampant homelessness, Washington needs more homes -- by some estimates 90,000 per year, a third of which should be affordable to those below area median income. And they need to be densely arranged to avoid feeding sprawl, which still runs on fossil fuels. 

Declaring housing to be a top priority for the session, the legislature reconfigured new committees solely focused on housing to take on the challenge. To their credit, through iterative revisions, a bipartisan majority incentivized new housing supply by allowing increased density across the state (HB 1110), simplifying design reviews (HB 1293) and legalizing Accessory Dwelling Units state-wide (HB 1337).

Addressing affordability wasn’t as easy. A transit-oriented development bill stalled over an unresolved debate about affordability requirements (SB 5466), the Governor’s bond measure for housing construction was a non-starter, and proposals to lift the property tax ceiling (SB 5770), and increase the excise tax on high-priced real estate sales (HB 1628) each failed. The Housing Trust Fund received $400M but that’s only enough for 3,000 new homes.

Meanwhile, tenant relief bills for rent stabilization (HB 1388, HB 1389) and rent increase notifications (HB 1124) failed to advance. (One solution? Elect more renters to the legislature.) There were two wins for renters: foreclosure protections (HB 1349) and landlord damage claims (HB 1074). Look for all those stalled bills to return next session.

Recycling & Waste Reduction 

We’re happy to say that 2023 was another session with multiple recycling and waste reduction proposals. Bills addressing the management of batteries (SB 5144), requiring refill stations with water fountains, phasing out plastic mini-toiletries and banning foam-filled dock floats (HB 1085), and researching standards for managing compostable products (HB 1033) all passed. Bills addressing the right to repair electronics (HB 1392) and the environmental impacts of lighting products were also introduced, setting them up for more work next session.

The largest and most impactful policy introduced was the WRAP Act (HB 1131), which stalled just short of a floor vote in its first chamber. It would establish a producer responsibility system for packaging that shifts recycling costs onto the companies that make the packaging decisions, incentivizing them to reduce unnecessary packaging and use greener, more recyclable materials. It would also set post-consumer recycled content requirements and establish a redeemable deposit on beverage containers to improve the recycling of bottles and cans. 

The WRAP Act made significant progress given its complexity and the resistance it faced from waste management companies and covered producers. We expect it to return next session.

Building Electrification

Removing fossil gas from buildings, our fastest growing source of emissions, progressed primarily through the budget, with Climate Commitment Act money directed toward electrification and energy efficiency incentives, and weatherization assistance for low income families. Bills for district energy systems (HB 1390), bringing non-residential customers of public utilities under the Clean Energy Transformation Act (HB 1416), and to prevent utilities from terminating service to residential customers on extreme heat days (HB 1329) all passed with bipartisan support.

While the statewide energy rebate navigator program, aimed at residential and small commercial buildings, prioritizing overburdened communities, (HB 1391) didn’t pass, funding was included in the budget to convene stakeholders and begin planning. 

This year Buy Clean Buy Fair, a bill to document the upfront carbon in structural materials for public buildings and associated labor practices (HB 1282) advanced further than in its past four attempts, with notable testimony by the steel industry calling out the timber industry for being carbon laggards. 

And Puget Sound Energy, one of our state’s largest climate polluters, brought forward a bill acknowledging the need to cap their “natural” gas expansion while seeking to shift decarbonization costs to their electric ratepayers (HB 1589). It did not pass but we expect it to return next session.

Bills to create an energy score for residential buildings (HB 1433), extend net metering for rooftop solar (HB 1427) and expand community solar programs (HB 1509) all failed to advance. Look for them to return next session as well.

Police Accountability and Criminal Justice Reform

Supporting a multicultural and intersectional climate movement must include the incorporation of justice, equity, and accountability into our legislative priorities. With incidents of police violence rising steadily for several decades, bills related to police accountability continue to be relevant.

Efforts to roll back police accountability measures have been a consistent barrier, with this year being no exception. In 2021, organizations such as the Washington Coalition for Police Accountability and People Power WA advocated for legislation that placed common sense limits on the use of high-speed vehicular pursuits and addressed the growing risk that pursuits posed to the general public. At that time, pursuits were responsible for 10-20% of the fatalities from police activities each year, with half of those killed being uninvolved bystanders or passengers. Despite this, the threshold for initiating vehicular pursuits was lowered this year from probable cause to reasonable suspicion (SB 5352). Although this had the slight positive of being a narrowed bill, the lowering of the threshold may set a negative standard for accountability bills in future legislative sessions.

Unfortunately, several bills we advocated for did not pass this session. Traffic Safety for All, a bill that would reduce stops for low-level traffic violations (HB 1513), was very popular with voters, but did not advance. Although this may be disappointing, that the bill remained intact and survived two tough committees in its first session is a victory in itself, and bodes well for passage next session. Two other bills are well positioned to advance next year; one would allow investigations of police agencies for systemic rights violations (HB 1445) and another would  establish an independent prosecutor for cases of police misconduct (HB 1579).

A bill to increase the sales tax to fund officer staffing levels (SB 5361), which we opposed, did not advance. Re-criminalizing drug possession (SB 5536), which we also opposed, failed at the last minute, opposed by Republicans who did not find the bill punitive enough and Progressives who opposed the criminalization of possession -- a strategy which has consistently failed to address substance use disorder and is disproportionately enforced. Unfortunately, despite overwhelming public support for a health-care based approach to substance use disorder, SB 5536 passed in special session. Moderate Democrats and some Progressives negotiated with Republicans for a more  punitive approach, increasing the penalty for drug possession to gross misdemeanor (increasing the penalty from a maximum of 90 days of incarceration to a maximum of 364); it also includes expanded funding for treatment programs.

Forestry

Grassroots advocates won the support of established conservation groups and succeeded in securing $83M in the Capital Budget (SB 5200) for preserving “structurally complex, carbon dense” state forests; this was the single largest budget item in the CCA’s Natural Climate Solutions Account. 

The Trust Land Transfers Program was re-established (HB 1460) and funded with $19.5M (SB 5200); that amount will conserve five forest projects: Eglon (Kitsap County), Devils Lake (Jefferson), Upper Dry Gulch (Chelan), Chapman Lake (Spokane) and West Tiger (King).

The Department of Natural Rescource’s attempt to gain statutory rights to sell ecosystem services, including carbon offsets (HB 1789), was turned inside out by the timber industry in an attempt to maintain harvest levels. Environmental groups then opposed it and it died. This policy is not likely to return until the 2025 session, when a $1.5M ecosystem services study is completed (proviso language here).

Salmon

While bills to restore riparian zones (HB 1215) and limit non-Tribal gill-netting (SB 5297) did not advance, vessel distances from orcas were increased (SB 5371), shoreline habitat surveying in Puget Sound (SB 5104) will occur and funding was secured to study energy and transportation transitions ahead of removing the Lower Snake River dams (HB 1125).

Climate Commitment Act Spending

The Climate Commitment Act’s first auction of pollution allowances brought in almost $300M, more than expected. What will it be spent on?

Funding was directed to incentivise the electrification of buildings, school buses, medium and heavy-duty trucks, state transit systems including ferries, and provide onshore power at ports, as well as charging infrastructure, and incentives for electric cars and e-bikes while prioritizing low income residents and overburdened communities. Multiple state agencies will receive funding for climate response strategies, with Ecology, Commerce and Natural Resources getting significant funding for new and existing climate and environmental programs.

$50M is dedicated to Indigenous relocation on the coast in response to climate change, and 10% of funds are directed to Tribal projects, including a large solar project in the Yakama Nation. 

35% of the funds are directed to overburdened communities, including air quality measures, reducing asthma rates near SeaTac airport, and mapping health disparities. That spending will be supported by a participatory budgeting process.

For you budget wonks out there, here’s all the details.

Budgets

This being a long session with boatloads of new spending in the Capital (SB 5200), Operating (SB 5187) and Transportation (HB 1125) budgets, CAT expanded its scope, analyzing CCA spending and tracking specific budget items. Of all the budget items we advocated for -- frontline climate and environmental priorities; heat pumps; weatherization plus health; conserving state forest lands; the Trust Land Transfer program; zero-emission medium and heavy-duty vehicles; deliberative climate engagement -- only one, regional rail improvements, wasn’t fully funded. That issue isn’t going away and neither are we!

Until Next Session

For a complete list of the bills CAT advocated for, visit this document. For a more exhaustive list of the climate bills from this session, go here.

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