Climate Action This Week:
  • Natural Resource Management
  • Building Performance Standard 
  • Statewide Building Code Commission
  • Peace Officers/Use of Force
  • Building Materials 
  • Climate in the Growth Management Act
  • Responsible Management of Batteries
  • Green Roofs
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* Your information

Here are our first four actions. We think these will take 10-15 minutes.
Any time you finish, or take a break, scroll to the bottom and click “Done.” You can come back later and do more if you have time.

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* 📜 1. Consolidate Natural Resources Under the Commissioner of Public Lands - HB 5721

We’re opposing this bill. This bill gives the Department of Natural Resources management of all the state's natural resources, bringing both Parks and Recreation and Fish and Wildlife under the purview of the Commissioner of Public Lands, including the commissioner appointing the director of Fish and Wildlife. This concentrates too much power in a department that tends to be beholden to the timber industry.

We previously asked people to take action to try to prevent it from getting a hearing. That effort failed so now we are asking you to oppose it at the committee hearing level.

We are following the lead of the Pacific Northwest Forest Climate Alliance.

Scheduled for a public hearing in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks on Tuesday, January 25, 1:30 PM.

✏️ Please sign in here to oppose HB 5721 before Tuesday, January 25, 12:30 PM and select “Con” in the position button.

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* 📜 2. Building Performance Standard - SB 5722

This bill sets smaller commercial and multifamily buildings on a path to better optimize their energy use and reduce energy costs and pollution. The 2019 Clean Buildings Act applies to only a small percentage of buildings (large commercial buildings). This bill extends coverage to multifamily residential and smaller commercial buildings, giving support to those that need it most, such as childcare centers, multifamily housing and houses of worship. It also includes protection of tenants from displacement as a condition of owner receipt of state funding. Buildings are in use for decades, so energy savings have a large cumulative impact.

We are following the lead of Shift Zero.

The Chair of the Senate Environment, Energy and Technology Committee, Senator Reuven Carlyle, has not yet scheduled SB 5722 for a vote.

Please call or email the following members of the Committee and ask them to hold an executive session and vote yes on SB 5722.

✏️ Click here to send an email to the Chair and Vice Chair of the committee.

If the above link did not work, please address your emails to:

Chair Sen. Reuven Carlyle (D-36) – (360) 786-7670 – Reuven.Carlyle@leg.wa.gov
Vice Chair Sen. Liz Lovelett (D-40) – (360) 786-7678 – Liz.Lovelett@leg.wa.gov

If you’re calling and you reach voicemail, be sure to speak slowly and clearly and say the bill number. And be sure to let them know if you are a constituent of their district!

📑 Script: I’m writing to ask Senator [Name] to ensure SB 5722 gets an executive session.

Then choose 1-2 additional sentences from the options below or feel free to write your own.
  • Since buildings stay in use for decades, a Building Performance Standard is an important policy to ensure our buildings are operating as efficiently as they can.
  • SB 5722 would expand certain requirements of the Clean Buildings Act to smaller commercial (20,000 - 50,000 square feet) and to multifamily buildings (over 20,000 square feet) in order to maximize energy efficiency and resulting climate and health benefits.

  I called I emailed
Sen. Carlyle
Sen. Lovelett

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* 📜 3. Statewide Building Code Commission

This is a little different than our regular legislative policy action, but it’s still an opportunity for CAT to influence statewide decisions.

Every three years the state is tasked with updating and improving existing building energy codes to incorporate the latest technologies. The agency responsible for this is the Statewide Building Code Council -- or SBCC. They are currently in the process of updating the Commercial Building Codes for New Construction. This includes newly constructed commercial buildings, as well as multifamily buildings that are four stories or taller. There will be public hearings on February 25 and March 11.

✏️ For now, take action to electrify our buildings and transition our economy away from fossil fuels. Sign and send this form, to tell the SBCC to support new codes that will help build an all electric future.

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* 📜 4. Broadening the circumstances and lowering the standards for when police officers can use force - HB 2037

We’re opposing this bill. This bill removes important protections crafted last year in consultation with families of those harmed or killed by police. It would authorize the use of physical force against anyone fleeing from a “lawful temporary investigative detention,” also known as a Terry Stop, regardless of how minor the supposed offense. People often flee interactions with police out of fear that they will be harmed, not because they have committed a crime. This bill gives police more leeway to use force and is a step backward.

We are following the lead of the Washington Coalition for Police Accountability and the ACLU.

Scheduled for public hearing in the House Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, January 25, 8:00 AM.

✏️ Please sign in here to oppose HB 2037 before Tuesday, January 25, 7:00 AM and select “Con” in the position button.

All done? Don’t forget to scroll to the bottom and click the orange “DONE” button to submit your actions!
If you have a little more time, these next two actions will take about 5 minutes.

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* 📜 5. Improving environmental and social outcomes with the production of building materials - HB 1103

This is a reporting-only bill that starts a process of recording the carbon intensity of structural building materials like steel, cement and wood, as well as data related to the labor used to produce those materials. We see it as a “sunshine” bill that will make the embodied carbon of building materials more widely known, a first step to choosing lower carbon products.

We are following the lead of the Blue Green Alliance.

Scheduled for public hearing in the House Committee of Appropriations on Tuesday, January 25, 3:30 PM.

✏️ Please sign in here to support HB 1103 before Tuesday, January 25, 2:30 PM and select “Pro” in the position button.

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* 📜 6. Providing for responsible environmental management of batteries - HB 1896

This bill requires battery manufacturers to establish a convenient and responsible recycling program for portable and medium-sized batteries. It makes battery manufacturers responsible for the lifecycle of their products, creating an incentive for them to make batteries that last longer or are easier to recycle. 

Battery recycling contributes to a more sustainable economy. By reusing materials and decreasing the demand for mining raw materials, this bill will decrease greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental effects of extraction. Proper handling and recycling of used batteries also helps prevent the release of toxic materials into the environment and removes batteries from the waste stream.

We are following the lead of Zero Waste Washington.

Scheduled for public hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy on Tuesday, January 25, 8:00 AM.

✏️ Please sign in here to support HB 1986 before Tuesday, January 25, 7:00 AM and select “Pro” in the position button.

All done? Don’t forget to scroll to the bottom and click the orange “DONE” button to submit your actions!
Have another 5 minutes? These two are for you!

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* 📜 7. Improving the state’s climate response through updates to the state’s comprehensive planning framework - HB 1099

We supported this bill last year, and it passed the House 57 to 41 this past Friday on January 21, 2022. Yay! Now it’s time to get it moving in the Senate.

It requires incorporation of greenhouse gas emission reduction measures in planning, prioritizes remediation in areas of disproportionate adverse impact, and defines environmental justice as a planning goal. 

We are following the lead of Futurewise.

✏️ Follow this link to ask your Senator to support this bill. When you “verify” your district, you can select which of your elected leaders to communicate to. For this senate bill, select your Senator.

The first sentence of the written comment should be: I strongly support HB 1099.

📑 Then choose 1-2 additional sentences from the options below or feel free to write your own.
  • Prioritizes remediation in communities experiencing disproportionate adverse impacts.
  • Requires consultation among agencies and tribes.
  • Requires planning for resiliency.
  • Creates a specific mechanism for reduction of GHG emissions in development, with monitoring by the departments of Transportation and Ecology and allows alternative transportation, like transit, in lieu of preferencing private vehicles.
  • Specifies state financial assistance to aid local governments with compliance.

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* 📜 8. Concerning green roofs on large commercial and multifamily buildings - SB 5732

This bill directs the Washington State Building Code Council to adopt rules by December 31, 2024 for green and solar roofs on large commercial and multifamily residential buildings. Green roofs and solar panel energy generation will reduce energy consumption, reduce the heat island effect, improve stormwater management, improve food security, improve air quality, improve human health, and improve climate resilience.

Scheduled for public hearing in the Senate Environment, Energy & Technology Committee on Wednesday, January 26, 8:00 AM.

✏️ Please sign here in support of SB 5732 before Wednesday, January 26, 7:00 AM and select “Pro” in the position button.

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* Thank you for hanging in with us! Please remember to click “Done” when you are finished. That way we have a record of how many actions y’all have taken. How did that go?

-- The 350 WA Civic Action Team

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