If you want to tell your legislators to support a bill:
We all need affordable ways to get around, but oil companies are price gouging anyone fueling up a vehicle with gas. While we struggled through the pandemic and inflation, oil companies made over $200 billion in profits in 2022 alone and then tried to blame climate policy for high prices at the pump to deflect attention from their profits.
Instead of investing in clean energy, they are pursuing oil and gas expansion and spending money on lobbying and misleading ads to fight cleaner options. We need transparency around how oil companies set their prices as well as accountability to stop their greenwashing and price gouging.
Our legislators need to protect Washingtonians by requiring oil industry transparency and accountability.
The bill would have the Utilities and Transportation Commission collect, analyze, and report on operational, pricing, and cost information from fuel suppliers, refineries, and other entities in the supply chain for transportation fuels sold in the state. It creates an independent Division of Petroleum Market Oversight with a director appointed by the Governor.
The Division would provide independent oversight and analysis of the transportation fuels markets to protect consumers by identifying market design flaws, market power abuses, and any other ways in which market participants act to harm competition or contrary to the best interests of consumers. It would be authorized to compel witnesses to testify under oath and to subpoena relevant material including current and historical pricing and sales data and industry contracts.It would provide guidance and recommendations to the Governor, as well as members and other divisions of the UTC on issues related to transportation fuels pricing and transportation decarbonization in Washington, and would report its findings and recommendations to improve market performance at least annually to the Legislature, the Governor, the UTC, the Attorney General, and the Department of Licensing.
All school kids deserve healthy, safe rides to school, but almost all school buses in our state currently run on diesel. Research shows that air pollution inside the bus can be more than four times worse than outside, meaning kids are especially exposed once they’re on their way to school. There are more than 10,000 diesel school buses transporting kids in Washington. With many models of electric school buses available, five other states have set a date in law by which new school buses must be 100% clean.
Our Washington legislators can pass such a law and support our kids and school districts in this critical transition.
The bill would require purchasing zero-emission school buses after September 1, 2035. It would create a grant program using any specifically appropriated funding to support school districts, charter schools, and state-tribal education compact schools purchasing them, and to support purchasing and installing charging stations and associated infrastructure and equipment. To be eligible for grants, buses powered by fossil fuels would have be at the end of their depreciation schedule and eligible for replacement under the current state law about reimbursing districts for the cost of student transportation vehicles. Grants for buses would not be allowed to exceed the purchase price minus any salvage value of the bus being replaced.
The ReWRAP Act will make producers of packaging and paper products responsible for their products’ full lifecycle while providing residents across the state with access to equitable recycling. The bill will incentivize producers to reduce unnecessary packaging and make packaging more sustainable.
The ReWRAP Act will modernize our recycling system and make it more equitable and effective in decreasing waste. It calls for developing a clear, common list of what can be recycled statewide, decreasing confusion. It will make producers of packaging and paper products responsible for the full lifecycle of their products, incentivizing producers to reduce unnecessary packaging and make packaging more sustainable. It will also improve labeling requirements so that packaging will reflect actual recyclability in Washington, and it will mandate post-consumer recycled content in certain plastic containers.
Creates a competitive grant program to assist in the financing of housing projects within rapid transit corridors. Eligible housing projects must be within one-quarter mile of a rapid transit corridor, and have a high concentration of units affordable to households with incomes at or below 50 percent area median income.
The bill would prohibit cities planning under the Growth Management Act from having any development regulations that would prohibit multifamily housing on any parcels where other residential uses were permitted within three-quarters of a mile from a major transit stop in an urban growth area.
Providing for the responsible management of refrigerant gases with a higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide that are used in appliances or other infrastructure.
The 2017 Project Drawdown report ranked better refrigerant management as the #1 action to take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next 30 years. The main GHGs are chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). Their impacts on global warming are 1,000 to 9,000 times as strong as the impact of carbon dioxide.
An amendment to the Washington State Constitution, confirming that the people of the state, including future generations, have the right to a clean and healthy environment, including pure water, clean air, healthy ecosystems, and a stable climate, and to the preservation of the natural, cultural, scenic, and healthful qualities of the environment.
Creating a program for a road use fee which vehicle owners could choose to pay instead of the gas tax.
The bill would have the Department of Licensing create a program for a road use fee of 2.5¢/mile which the owners of plugin vehicles under 10,000 pounds could choose to pay instead of the gas tax, beginning in 2030. The bill would waive the $175 in additional registration fees those owners currently pay, for vehicles in the program. The annual road use fee would be reduced by the DOT’s estimate of any gas tax a plug-in hybrid paid during the year, and would be limited to the amount of the waived additional registration fees any of these vehicles would have been subject to if they were not in the program.
Owners would be able to choose between reporting miles driven by submitting periodic odometer readings or using one or more means of automated reporting the Department would develop. (The State Transportation Commission and the Department would explore and report on the possibility of having reporting mechanisms drivers could choose to use built into vehicles by manufacturers.) The bill has various provisions for limiting the collection of information to what’s necessary to determine the fee, requiring the owner’s specific consent, providing data security, and limiting public disclosure of location information.
This bill requires digital electronic product manufacturers, such as Apple and Microsoft, and manufacturers of wheelchairs, appliances, and tractors to make repair information, parts and tools available to independent repair businesses and owners.
There’s a huge amount of e-waste! For example, on average, Washington disposes of 8,700 phones every day. This bill would make it possible for small businesses to repair these items. Extending the life of computers, tablets and cellphones, farm equipment, wheelchairs, and appliances will decrease the need for more resources, energy and transportation to manufacture new products – therefore also decreasing greenhouse gas. This bill will lower costs for consumers, get used computers, tablets and cell phones into the hands of people who need them, and help overcome digital inequities in Washington. This way, people will keep using their items instead of tossing them!
Zero Waste Washington is leading the efforts in advocating for this legislation.
This deposit return program for beverage containers will greatly increase the recycling of beverage containers and reduce polluting waste.
This “bottle bill” will create a deposit return system for most glass, metal, and plastic beverage containers to be implemented by the distributors (as defined). The program will substantially increase the recovery, recycling, and reuse of beverage containers in Washington and can successfully operate parallel to a producer responsibility system. Consumers will pay a 10-cent deposit on each beverage container and then redeem the 10 cents at drop locations. A beverage container recycling and reuse system will be funded by unredeemed deposits and the distributors.
Zero Waste Washington is leading the efforts in advocating for this legislation.
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