What Did the Washington State Legislature Accomplish in 2002?

Nina Carter is the policy director for Audubon Washington in Olympia. Prior to Audubon, she worked for several state agencies: ecology, parks, fish and wildlife and Office of Marine Safety. From 1990-94, she served on the Olympia City Council.

by Nina Carter

In December 2001, over twenty Audubon conservation committee members asked Audubon’s state office to follow four legislative policy areas during the 2002 Legislative session: budget, transportation, growth management, and wetlands. For 60 days, we tracked proposed legislation, testified at committee hearings, and monitored budget deliberations.

After the Legislature adjourned on March 14 at midnight (on time!), we reviewed their legislative performance and accomplishments. Although environmental programs were cut disproportionately to other state agencies, luckily we did not see major rollbacks in our environmental laws.

As Governor Locke said at the bill signing ceremony on April 1 at a downtown Seattle city park, most of the Legislators’ work on environmental bills was technical and arcane. But, nevertheless, the governor reminded us that every bill counts towards cleaner air and water and a better place to live in Washington.

Bills Signed by Governor on April 1

HB 2758 Creating an Agriculture Conservation Easements Program. Prime sponsor: Representative Dave Quall. The bill creates an agriculture conservation easements program in the conservation commission. This program will allow for the use of local, state, federal and private funds to help in the purchase of conservation easements on agricultural lands. This program will help protect important habitats while providing financial assistance to keep farmers, farming.

SB 6553 Invasive Aquatic Species. Prime sponsor: Senator Eric Poulson. An executive request bill. It gives Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife the authority to identify invasive aquatic species, declare a waterbody to be infested with an invasive species, and develop a plan for cleaning up the waterbody. New penalty provisions for the possession, transport or release of invasive species will, for the first time, give enforcement authority for these violations.

SB 6538 Ballast Water Work Group. Prime sponsor: Senator Debbie Regala. Creates the ballast water work group to study the issue of treatment of vessel ballast water and to develop a program for vessel reporting of ballast water treatment prior to entering the waters of the state. Ballast water is the leading source for the introduction of invasive species into the state.

SB 6353 Migratory Bird Stamps. Prime sponsor: Senator Mary Margaret Haugen. Increases the fee for migratory bird stamps from $6 to $10. The increased revenue will allow Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to expand waterfowl and wetland conservation programs using this dedicated fund source.

SB 6575 Natural Area Preserves Management. Prime sponsor: Senator Jim Hargrove. The Washington State Department of Natural Resources must develop standards for regulating public access to natural area preserves and provide buffer zones around environmentally sensitive areas. The plans must also identify the significant resources to be conserved in the area.

HB 2376 Abandoned and Derelict Vessels. Prime Sponsor: Representative Phil Rockefeller. Clarifies the responsibilities for dealing with abandoned and derelict vessels. This is a huge problem throughout Puget Sound. This bill is the first real attempt to solve the problem and provide for removal of these vessels.

HB 1411 Providing Notice to Neighbors of the Release of a Hazardous Substance. Prime sponsor: Representative Velma Veloria. Currently, there is no requirement that when there is a release of a hazardous substance that the neighbors of the facility would get notice of the release. This bill changes that. Notice must be given to the Department of Ecology, who will notify neighbors, including residents, landowners, and businesses within 300 feet, as well as neighborhood associations and community organizations. This requirement will provide the information neighbors need to ensure their safety, and to inform them of them measures that will be taken to clean up the release.

Cuts to the State’s Operating Budget

The environmental community was very disappointed at the disproportionate share of cuts made to the natural resource agencies. We assumed we would have to take some cuts just like everyone else, but when the legislature cut out more than $21 million in natural resource programs that resulted in 8.6 percent of the total cuts. This amount is a lot to ask of environmental programs that only use 1.6 percent of the general fund. Some examples of cuts taken by the agencies:

Fish and Wildlife: Even though the Legislature was looking for ways to raise money, they chose not to charge a fee for hydraulic permits. These permits are now free to the public even though the general taxpayer pays for the permit staff at Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Also, the state-wide Salmon Recovery Office was eliminated and the burden of financing salmon recovery projects, monitoring and other staffing now falls to the Salmon Recovery Funding Board chaired by Bill Ruckelshaus.

Marine bird monitoring at Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) was cut and restored several times. Funding for the 10-year-old marine bird monitoring program was still in the final budget passed by the Legislature, but WDFW was required to make more cuts in their Puget Sound monitoring program. As of April 15, WDFW is still considering whether it can cut state funding for marine bird monitoring program and maybe substitute for it with federal funds. Audubon is in weekly contact with WDFW about their budget decision and will let you know about the final budget decision through the Audubon email lists.

Preventing Oil Spills: Ecology’s oil spill prevention rescue tug was funded for another year, although only for 200 days during the winter, instead of the 220. (Let’s hope we don’t have an Exxon Valdez on the day after the tug is sent to dry dock.)

Shoreline Protection: Ecology’s shoreline program was cut by 15 percent and HB 2305 passed, which exempts existing agriculture from the Shoreline Management Act. The passage of this bill was expected because rural lawmakers had pushed for a bill and the Locke administration agreed to support it two years ago. The exemption was originally part of a package to implement improved shoreline rules everywhere else, but the bill moved in spite and in front of broader shoreline negotiations. The governor did work to ensure that the exemption did not extend to the Growth Management Act.

State Park Closures: Several parks will be closed temporarily and many parks that are actually owned by other governments (federal, public utilities, counties) may be turned back over if those owners are unable to pay operating costs. The legislature created a special task force to study the decades-long problem of under-funding for state park operations and maintenance. The task force recommendations are due to the Legislature by January 1, 2003 and they are required to take some action on the recommendations

Other Environmental Issues

Transportation: Turns out the 2002 Legislature did not want to make the final call on raising gas taxes to pay for more transportation projects. So, this fall you can vote on a referendum to spend $7.8 billion for new highways and transportation. Of that amount, $1.2 will be used for transportation choices (that is rail, bus transit, trip reduction programs, car pool lanes, etc.).

The environmental community believes that this amount for transportation choices fell short of a balanced transportation package, but it did represent a significant step forward by historical standards. Interestingly, the Legislature’s failure to pass a bill in Olympia forced lawmakers to provide more transportation choices‚ so the referendum would have a chance with voters. Stay tuned for this vote in the fall.

Water: Although a joint task force from the Senate, House and Governor’s Office tried to develop a comprehensive water policy bill, they failed to complete their work on time. By the time a draft proposal reached the Senate, too many legislators disagreed with the details of the water policy proposal. Our state still lacks a comprehensive water policy that will allocate enough water for people, farms and fish.

Wetlands: HB 2288 has been signed by the governor. This new law will allow the Department of Transportation to transfer environmental mitigation sites to local, state, or federal agencies, tribal governments, or private nonprofit groups that are organized for environmental conservation purposes. If the recipients agree to assume ownership of these sites, then they must assume all future maintenance and operation obligations and costs required to maintain and operate the environmental mitigation site in perpetuity.

Competitiveness Council: Earlier in the legislative session, the Competitiveness Council released a report criticizing state government operations, and in particular, environmental and labor programs. Several bills were proposed that would have made it more difficult to enforce or adopt environmental protection programs. Luckily, these bills were held up in the House State Government Committee. But, to their credit, many legislators wanted to understand why the complaints were generated about permitting requirements.

To counter these complaints, several House members sponsored and then worked hard to pass a bill to assist the public when they want permits for projects that impact our watersheds, wetlands or ecosystems. We thank Representatives Linville, Romero, Reardon, Simpson, Gombosky, Grant, Veloria, Kessler, Conway, Doumit, Hatfield, Ogden, Morris, Kenney, Dickerson, Edwards, Chase, Schual-Berke, Wood, Rockefeller, Jackley, Kagi and McDermott for sponsoring and working to pass HB 2671. It was partially vetoed by the governor.

Biodiversity: SB 6400, the biodiversity bill, passed and was funded with $35,000 to create a temporary committee. This committee will develop recommendations to the governor and the Legislature to establish the framework to develop and implement a statewide biodiversity conservation strategy. This strategy is meant to replace our limited existing single-species or single-resource protection programs. A report is due to the Legislature and Governor Locke by October 1, 2003.

Growth Management Timelines: SB 5841 has been signed by the governor. This law extends timelines for counties and cities to adopt their growth management ordinances. There is a cash incentive to adopt the ordinances within the time frame; if their work is done on time, then they will be eligible for grants or loans from some environmental programs.

Transportation and Land Use Planning: A long-overdue bill (SB 5748) was signed by the governor. It integrates transportation and land use planning and, among other things, encourages local governments to support development to revitalize existing downtowns and encourage compact, transit-oriented development for residential and nonresidential areas u

If you would like bi-weekly updates, please send Nina Carter an email (ncarter@audubon.org) asking to be added to the email list of the Bird’s Eye View, the Washington State Audubon legislative report.