2024 legislative review
Energy and Environment
Peter Godlewski : Energy , Environment and Water Policy
This year marked the start of a transition in the energy legislation space . With the passage of the Clean Energy Transformation Act ( CETA ) in 2019 and the Climate Commitment Act ( CCA ) in 2021 , plus other significant environmental and climate bills the Legislature has passed in the past six years , we ’ ve reached a point where implementation is beginning to be a bigger issue than passing new laws .
Over the next few sessions AWB expects to see the conversation shifting from additional climate policy toward finding ways to meet the implementation challenges created by CETA and the CCA , although there will still be bills .
HB 1589 was likely the first of several bills which look to manage the costs from these programs . 1589 had a number of concerns
Peter Godlewski is AWB ’ s government affairs director for policies around energy , environment and water .
from the AWB membership perspective . However , the business community and consumers are seeing energy rate increases stemming from the cost of building out the green energy system required by CETA and high credit prices from the CCA . Those costs are only going to get higher , and will require legislation to address .
Hopefully bills like HB 2039 and HB 1216 become more common as legislators work to make it less onerous to build the green energy required by CETA to help lower costs . More work also needs to be done to prepare for new energy sources like hydrogen and small modular reactors , both of which saw some funding in the capital budget this year .
On the environmental side , there is the same shift in new policies coming forward and more movement toward the refinement and implementation of existing laws . The Safer Products for Washington bill , which passed in 2019 , creates a comprehensive chemical review for Department of Ecology . It has finished its first full five-year cycle and is starting its second . This bill removes the need for the Legislature to individually consider banning chemicals and instead delegates this authority to the Department of Ecology . The program needs a number of reforms , but overall provides a five-year process for AWB members to engage with the issue of handling chemicals of concern .
The area where we ’ re likely to see the biggest shift and biggest push is around extended producer responsibility , or EPR . We ’ ve seen versions of an EPR bill every year for the past six years and it will likely remain a topic of conversation moving forward . How to handle particular plastic resin types in the post-consumer waste streams is a particular challenge in terms of costs for municipalities and AWB members . Finding a solution to that problem is still top of mind for legislators . AWB will continue to advocate on behalf of the business community to ensure that whatever policies are passed achieve tangible and measurable recycling increases while not acting as de facto bans for any one material .
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