Seattle/King County Climate News 3.2.24

[Robin Briggs]

As the Legislative Session winds to a close, there is less to keep track of, but most everything is more final. As is usual, lots going on at both the State and the local level.

Seattle

The Mayor released the Seattle Transportation Plan, which will be presented to the Transportation Committee on Tuesday morning. See here for an overview. The new plan comes in two parts. Part One outlines the vision, describes the engagement, and has at the end a long list of possible capital projects. Part Two is a Technical Report that goes over what used to be all the different plans (Bicycle Plan, Transit Plan, etc.) and lays out the criteria for prioritizing the different goals for different contexts.

Equitable Development Zoning, Part 2, aka Connected Communities is now before the Land Use Committee (The Urbanist). The proposal would set up zoning incentives for projects that set aside 30% of units as affordable and partner with community-based organizations. At most 35 projects would be built under this pilot program. Representatives from affordable housing groups and some climate groups were in support, some tree advocates came out in opposition

State

The Legislative Session ends next week. What remains is finalizing the budget bills, and reconciling the bills that passed both chambers but were amended differently in the two houses. One person I heard from said that overall it seemed like a much less ambitious year, partly because of the short session, but also because of uncertainty over upcoming elections, open positions like the Governorship, and some prominent people retiring. So, here's hoping the elections go well because there's a lot riding on it.

Following is a quick summary of bills, for a more complete look see here. 

These bills all passed and are awaiting the Governor's signature:

• SB 5973, Condo owners have a right to install heat pumps

• HB 2156, Solar consumer protections

• HB 1976, Larger incentives for upgrading buildings

• SB 6283, Extend Connecting Communities program for multi-modal paths

These bills have passed both chambers but require reconciliation:

• SB 6058, Link WA's carbon allowances market with California & Quebec

• HB 1368, Electric School Buses

• HB 1589, PSE Decarbonization

• HB 1282, Buy Clean, Buy Fair

• HB 1998, Legalize co-housing (e.g., apodments)

• HB 2131, Networked geothermal heat pumps pilot projects enabled (Avista has a pilot in the works)

And, these bills missed the cutoff and are no longer in consideration:

• SB 6092, Require big businesses to report their GHG emissions

• HB 1433, Home Energy Score

The State Dept of Commerce released a Priority Climate Action Plan. The plan was funded by a grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for helping states, tribes and metropolitan areas to develop comprehensive climate plans. The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency will be doing the work for the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area which includes all cities in the four county region. This Plan includes a GHG Inventory, quantified GHG reduction measures, a Low Income and Disadvantaged Communities Benefits Analysis, as well as a review of authority to implement each measure. There will be a state-wide Comprehensive Climate Plan that follows in the summer of 2025, and a follow up status report in 2027.

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