Civic Action Team
2021 Legislative Recap

The Civic Action Team mobilized 400+ people to take a collective 18,000+ individual advocacy actions, three times as many as last year. Thank you! (Didn’t participate? Sign up here for next year’s session.)

Virtual Olympia

Justice, recovery, and climate were the declared themes of the 2021 legislative session.

Engagement by legislators and family members affected by police violence in the months before the session led to a strong set of bills addressing police accountability. These bills moved early and the majority passed, addressing police tactics and equipment, the use of force and how it’s investigated, oversight, accountability, and an officer's duty to intervene, among other issues.

The recovery of state revenue and the prospect of a one-time infusion of federal stimulus money alleviated the need for austerity cuts, but that didn’t prevent the majority from taking action on revenue, passing a capital gains tax and finally funding the working families tax credit.

In a notable victory, the Healthy Environment for All (HEAL) Act was passed. It enshrines environmental justice in state law, outlines how state agencies should consider community needs and establishes an environmental justice council to work with agencies to create legislation.

Meanwhile, climate action was tied to funding a transportation package in a “grand bargain” to pass Clean Fuels and put a price on carbon.

Third time’s the charm for Clean Fuels

This year’s attempt to pass a Clean Fuels Standard started in the House and was held hostage in the Senate before emerging from a conference committee, weakened but finally accepted after three years of effort. The bill as passed reduces carbon intensity more slowly than earlier drafts, reaching a modest 10% reduction in 2031 and pausing there for two years. Any ability to make additional reductions was made contingent on an increase in local biofuel feedstocks and in-state refining capacity. And a legislative review is required before continuing the program after the pause in 2031. A further 20% reduction was pushed back three years to 2038.

Carbon pricing drama

Two carbon pricing bills were introduced in the Senate. Judging from public participation they had inverse appeal. The unpopular cap and pollution credit trading program, Climate Commitment Act, moved forward, pushed hard by party leadership. The broadly popular carbon tax and green bond proposal, Washington STRONG, was suppressed.

Cap and trade comes to Washington

Passed out of the Senate by a single vote, which was cast with the plea that the bill be “repaired” in the next chamber, the Climate Commitment Act traveled through two House committees at a breakneck pace. After the first revision, finding their senate deals unwound, covered industrial polluters cried foul. To get the cap and trade program across the finish line, accommodations with covered polluters were kicked down the road to next year, when exemptions and compliance schedules will be the subject of new legislation before any pollution credit trading can begin.

The facility siting regulations for large polluters was a focus for supporters of industry across several bills, and an attempt to repair the lax provisions in the cap and trade bill headway after the bill left the senate, but not enough. A year’s worth of rule-making at the Department of Ecology, instigated at the Governor’s direction, will have to slow down as conflicting directives are sorted out, but it’s clear that the ability to deny permits for new polluting facilities has been weakened. Washington is open to any business that is willing to pay to pollute.

Despite broad discontent among Representatives, pressure was applied by party leadership and the Climate Commitment Act passed the House with minimal defections and only some of the “repair” pled for by the deciding vote in the Senate. Consistent with the “grand bargain,” along with the implementation of a Clean Fuels program, the start of pollution credit trading is contingent on a future transportation package and a five cent a gallon gas tax increase.

Until that happens, state agencies will have time to build the complex bureaucracy needed to implement the pollution credit trading program, similar to the one in California that has been controversial and largely ineffectual. Oversight and participation in the rulemaking process by environmental groups and concerned citizens will be essential.

One improvement over the California system: Washington’s includes provisions to regulate criteria pollutants, the particulate pollution so harmful to local health.

While two parts of the “grand bargain” were delivered, the massive transportation package with millions of dollars of local road projects that was used as leverage will have to wait for a special session (after federal infrastructure funding is sorted out, perhaps). Or next year’s session, or even the next budgetary session, in 2023.

Other climate bills

While a significant bill regulating hydrofluorocarbons and a ban on Styrofoam were passed, other climate bills faced mixed results.

A bill updating the Growth Management Act to address climate change was mysteriously diverted to the Senate Transportation Committee and killed, even while a complementary bill addressing affordable housing in the GMA passed. The requirement that all new cars and light trucks be zero emitting after 2030 was reduced to a non-binding goal before finding passage as an amendment to another bill.

An omnibus of regulations aimed at reducing the use of fossil gas in new buildings ran into a wall of resistance from the gas industry and their allies; we expect work with stakeholders will occur over the interim. A bill addressing the preservation of salmon in comprehensive planning was left for next session, one vote short of final passage. And a truly significant amendment to the state constitution that would enshrine protection of our natural resources was ignored.

Looking ahead

Those unpassed climate bills, the outstanding exemptions and compliance periods for industrial polluters in the cap and trade program, as well as a police accountability bill related to community oversight will all be on the starting block for next year’s session.

Join us

A list of the 40+ bills and budget items that we supported is available here, and a more exhaustive list of all the climate bills introduced this session can be found here.

To join our advocacy work next year, sign up here.

-- the intrepid, well-herded pack of CAT volunteers