issue area reports | energy and environment
Rep . Davina Duerr , D-Bothell , is assistant majority whip and vice chair of the House Environment & Energy Committee .
only be hydropower , natural gas , or nuclear in Washington state . If demand spikes and none of these options has sufficient free capacity , then the lights could go out . There are existing provisions in CETA as well as additional legislation passed that further strengthens the ability of utilities to pause implementation if they can prove that advancing further jeopardizes a reliable grid . HB 1623 was an additional piece of legislation that would have further provided protections for Washingtonians by requiring that the stakeholder group established in CETA was to directly look at the impact of the bill on power adequacy and if the bill was increasing the risk of blackouts . The information would have been provided to the Legislature .
AWB supported the bill and it passed with unanimous votes in both chambers of the Legislature . The governor , however , claimed that it was redundant to existing programs and vetoed the bill .
SB 5842 concerning state laws that address climate change
Passed / AWB Supported
Senate Bill 5842 was another clean-up bill for the Climate Commitment Act ( CCA ), clarifying a few issues around the bill ; adjusting when the baseline dates for covered entities starts , from 2023 to 2015 ; aligning compliance date curves with other cap and trade programs to make linkage easier ; adding clarity on allowance price ceilings ; and adding confidentiality for participating entities in the program . The bill also created the Office of Climate Policy and Accountability in the Department of Ecology , and a new director of that office and also changed the language on local , state , and federal preemption of greenhouse gas emissions .
AWB and several members were particularly concerned by this last point , which the department said was necessary to prevent a possible conflict between federal Clean Air Act enforcement and other state statutes . As currently drafted , the CCA is the only statute that can regulate greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources and it preempts all other regulations . This was a key point for the business community last year , which prevents the state or local governments from pancaking on additional regulations on stationary sources . Ecology claimed that this language made it potentially difficult for them to enforce elements of the Federal Clean Air Act and other state statues around GHGs and offered changes which weakened those protections .
While AWB and our members did not have an issue with clarifying the federal preemption , we did have major concerns with weakening language that might open the door to additional regulation on stationary sources at the state level . AWB and our members worked Department staff and Senate and House members to negotiate language which creates some reasonable
Bill considered as part of AWB ’ s voting record
Favorable outcome for Washington businesses
Missed Opportunities
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