Week of January 25, 2010

Week of January 25, 2010:

• Download Hot List for the state House
• Download Hot List for the state Senate

POSSIBLE SENATE FLOOR ACTION

SB 6248: Regarding the use of bisphenol A. (a.k.a. Safe Baby Bottle Act)

Senate Health and Long Term Care: Possible Executive Session

POSITION: SUPPORT

• The Safe Baby Bottle bill protects children's health by banning the toxic chemical—bisphenol A (BPA)—in baby bottles, sippy cups, sports water bottles, and other food and beverage containers intended for children 3 and under.
• The Food and Drug Administration recently reversed its opinion on the safety of BPA and is now concerned about the hormone disrupting chemical's use in baby bottles. In its new opinion on BPA, the agency cited the potential for effects on the brain, behavior, and prostate gland in fetuses, infants, and young children among the reason for their concern.

SENATE COMMITTEE ACTION

SB 5518: Reducing the amount of petroleum pollution in stormwater. (a.k.a. Working for Clean Water)

Senate Ways and Means Committee: Possible public hearing

POSITION: SUPPORT

• This bill will put Washington back to work. A per-barrel oil fee imposed upon refineries will directly fund $120 million each year in local projects to clean up petroleum pollution in our water, creating thousands of new jobs across the state.
• By volume, petroleum is the most significant contaminant in stormwater that runs into our lakes, rivers and streams. A priority for local governments, labor and environmentalists, this polluter-pays bill will help rebuild local economies and clean up polluted waterways from Puget Sound to the Spokane River.

SB 6214: Restructuring three growth management hearings boards into one board.

• This bill consolidates the 3 growth management hearings boards into 1 board and reduces the number of board members from 9 to 7. This bill will save the state nearly $800,000 a biennium and is supported by a broad range of stakeholders, including interests representing cities, counties and the environmental & business communities.
• The proposed substitute provides flexibility to the GMHB but directs them to, when possible, create future panels in a way that reflects the qualifications and makeup of the entire board.
  

SB 6289: Protecting lake water quality by reducing phosphorus from lawn fertilizers.

Environment, Water, and Energy: Possible Executive Session

• Phosphorous from residential lawn fertilizers is a major water quality problem that, if not limited, will require local governments to spend millions on wastewater treatment plant upgrades.
• This bill limits phosphorous in fertilizers applied to established residential lawns, unless the soil is deemed to be phosphorous deficient.

SB 6343: Establishing the Washington food policy council.

• A State Food Policy Council would bring together a broad group of stakeholders and agencies to better coordinate with the goal of increasing the production, sales, and consumption of Washington-grown foods, and to promote programs that bring healthy Washington grown foods to low income people.

SB 6489: Adding products to the energy efficiency code.

POSITION: SUPPORT

• This bill adopts efficiency standards for televisions.
• In 2020, these efficiency standards will save Washington energy consumers about $24.8 million per year. Energy savings will be an estimated 45 annual average megawatts – equal to the average output of about 60 wind turbines.

SB 6536: Regarding the withdrawals of waters of the state from additional appropriations.

POSITION: OPPOSE

• Water is a finite resource, and senior water rights and in-stream flows face tremendous uncertainty with the proliferation of permit-exempt wells and impacts due to climate change. Currently, the Department of Ecology has the authority to withdraw waters from further appropriation when it lacks information to make responsible water management decisions. This bill places an unreasonable burden on Ecology by requiring the agency to prove impairment of a water right with peer reviewed science before it can stop new appropriations, which effectively removes the agency's ability to exercise precaution in an over-appropriated basin.
• Senior water right holders, which may include in-stream flows, have limited tools available to address impairment concerns in a timely manner. This bill would dramatically weaken one of the strongest tools available to address impairment, collect needed information, and find balanced solutions for conflicting water uses.

SB 6547 and EHB 2561: Funding construction of energy cost saving improvements to public facilities.

• We can put Washingtonians back to work while giving our children better places to learn and saving our schools money. This bill is a referendum to the voters to authorize the state to issue bonds for building upgrades and energy conservation retrofits in schools across the state.
• The JOBS Act will create about 40,000 new jobs while saving school districts millions in energy costs--that's money that can be used for our teachers and improving instruction.

SB 6656: Authorizing a local financing tool to fund energy efficiency upgrades and removing financial barriers to implementing conservation programs.

Environment, Water and Energy: Public hearing

• This bill unlocks the full job-creating potential of making our homes and businesses more energy efficient by allowing municipalities to set up revolving loan programs that overcome the biggest barrier to money-saving conservation projects in Washington- the lack of up-front financing. Conservation loans are paid back with energy savings through utility or property tax bills.
• The bill also allows utilities to recover investments made to make our homes and businesses more energy efficient.

SB 6672: Modifying the energy independence act.

POSITION: CONCERNS

• This bill amends I-937, the citizens’ Clean Energy Initiative, passed by the voters in 2006.
• This bill is a result of negotiations during the interim with utilities, industry and the environmental community.

POSSIBLE HOUSE FLOOR ACTION

2SHB 1165: Providing safe collection and disposal of unwanted drugs from residential sources.

• Drug producers will provide and pay for program to collect unneeded medicines including controlled substances such as narcotics. Producers can partner with law enforcement, which has legal authority to collect controlled substances.
• We can and should dispose of waste medicines properly to reduce environmental contamination. The collected medicines will not contaminate water, cause accidental poisonings, or be used illicitly by a teenager.

2SHB 1180: Regarding the use of bisphenol A. (a.k.a. The Safe Baby Bottle Act)

• The Safe Baby Bottle bill protects children's health by banning the toxic chemical—bisphenol A (BPA)—in baby bottles, sippy cups, sports water bottles, and other food and beverage containers intended for children 3 and under.
• The Food and Drug Administration recently reversed its opinion on the safety of BPA and is now concerned about the hormone disrupting chemical's use in baby bottles. In its new opinion on BPA, the agency cited the potential for effects on the brain, behavior, and prostate gland in fetuses, infants, and young children among the reason for their concern.

HOUSE COMMITTEE ACTION

HB 2541: Maintaining a base of forest lands that may be used for commercial forestry.

• This legislation makes it difficult for the Forest Practices Board to protect public resources such as clean water by efficiently making and updating rules governing logging in Washington. It requires the Board to propose and fund incentives for voluntary measures before it can adopt any new rules, as well as applying other hurdles to efficient rulemaking.
• The legislatively-approved Forests and Fish rules require that proposed rule changes come from a multi-stakeholder process that includes the timber industry before they are brought to the Board. This bill is an end-run around that legislatively directed stakeholder process.

HB 2559: Water quality trading

• This bill directs the state to create a program which is in conflict with both federal and state water quality laws. The program would relax pollution treatment requirements for a facility if the operator purchased “pollution credits”.
• This approach has been unsuccessful in other jurisdictions and is very costly to implement.

HB 2604: Exempting certain diversion of surface waters for agricultural purposes from the permit process.

• This bill creates a pilot project and a new exemption in the water code (RCW 90.03) for diversions of surface water in the "tidally influenced portion of the [Skagit] river" for new agricultural uses. Instead of adding new exemptions to the law, we should be working to find balanced solutions to fix a broken water management system and avoid exacerbating conflicts between permit and permit-exempt water uses.
• The pilot project creates a dangerous precedent that may harm salmon and steelhead recovery efforts (a legal obligation under the Endangered Species Act) and degrade precious estuarine and near-shore habitat by allowing excessive withdrawals of freshwater right before the water mixes with salt water. The bill has no protections to prevent or address ecological impacts in critical habitat areas.

HB 2853: Authorizing a local financing tool to fund energy efficiency upgrades and removing financial barriers to implementing conservation programs.

• This bill unlocks the full job-creating potential of making our homes and businesses more energy efficient by allowing municipalities to set up revolving loan programs that overcome the biggest barrier to money-saving conservation projects in Washington- the lack of up-front financing. Conservation loans are paid back with energy savings through utility or property tax bills.
• The bill also allows utilities to recover investments made to make our homes and businesses more energy efficient.

HB 2855: Providing financing options for the operations and capital needs of transit agencies.

• Transit agencies across the state are facing drastic service cuts that will force more people to drive, increasing emissions and congestion across the state.
• This bill will enact a temporary local option vehicle license fee that will help many transit agencies from falling of a financial cliff and cutting service.

HB 2965: Adjusting the oil spill response tax and oil spill administration tax.

• This bill calls for an increase in the oil “barrel tax” and seals tax loopholes in order to provide funding for state oil spill prevention and response programs. The tax has not been adjusted in almost 20 years and the state program is now running a major deficit, compromising our ability to both prevent and respond to spills.

HB 2992: Extending the deadlines for the review and evaluation of comprehensive land use plan and development regulations for three years.

• HB 2992 delays the next time local governments update their land use plans for three years. These updates are where cities and counties comprehensively review and revise their 20-year growth plans to reflect future land capacity & demand, population projection, and infrastructure funding.
• The amendment protects commercially significant farm and forest land from being converted to other uses during this 3 year delay. Paving over resource land is difficult if not impossible to undo; local governments should protect these non-urban lands from conversion until they are able to comprehensively review their land use plans.

HB 3034: Modifying the energy independence act.

Technology, Energy & Communications: Public hearing &Possible Executive Session
POSITION: CONCERNS

• The bill amends I-937, the citizens’ Clean Energy Initiative, passed by the voters in 2006.
• This bill is a result of negotiations during the interim with utilities, industry and the environmental community.

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