| Environment The League of Women Voters of Washington believes that climate change is a serious crisis facing our nation and planet. We now have no time to lose in implementing broad policy to slow planetary warming. Although solutions must align globally, state and local Leagues and individuals have a critical role to play in working to limit future climate change and protect the planet. Optimum response requires aligning actions to local conditions and opportunities. Nations and world bodies have been slow to respond with global solutions. That’s why individuals, communities, and governments must implement policies to reduce the greenhouse gasses they emit, while considering the ramifications of their decisions at all levels. The League supports climate goals and policies that are consistent with the best available climate science and that will ensure a stable climate and environment for future generations. Issue Team Chair: Martin Gibbins, mgibbins@lwvwa.org |
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Legislation |
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2025 Climate Crisis and Energy Legislation
Bills in green are supported. Bills in red are opposed by the League. Bills in black the League is watching.
HB 1015 Energy labeling of residential buildings. Making information about energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions available to homebuyers will help homebuyers make more informed decisions and cause the market to better value the home’s energy efficiency. If enacted, cities and counties will have the option to require that the owner of a single-family residence obtain and make available a home energy performance report before the residence may be publicly advertised for sale.
HB 1031 Mitigating the impact of rising school facility temperatures resulting from climate change. Not all school buildings have cooling systems adequate for the changing climate as daytime temperatures experience higher averages and extreme temperature swings. This bill will initiate a study and standards-setting process to keep schools at safe and learning-effective temperatures to accommodate such temperature instabilities.
HB 1183 Building code and development regulation reform. revises the Growth Management Act (GMA) providing regulatory relief setbacks, roof heights, and such to enable additional external thickness for retrofitted insulation on walls and roofs. This will enable energy efficiency retrofits for some houses and buildings currently at the building code limits.
HB 1328/SB 5359 Accelerating the development of clean energy and transmission. These bills, requested by the Department of Commerce, are designed to accelerate the pace of adequate, reliable, and affordable clean energy development and the needed transmission infrastructure in the state. The Department of Commerce will create an Office of Clean Energy Development as a source of: information and coordination among utilities, tribes, communities, and permitting authorities; collaboration with other states; procedures to ensure community benefits and workforce training. These objectives align with our support for legislation in past sessions.
HB 1514 Encouraging the deployment of low carbon thermal energy networks. Thermal energy networks tie together sources of zero carbon energy such ground source, geothermal, and waste heat to enable and optimize efficient reuse. Heat pumps efficiently increase the temperature of this free energy making it useful for valuable purposes. Unneeded or unwanted heat in one building is transported to another building where it’s needed. While the energy is free, transporting it requires investment in pipes, heat pumps, and other infrastructure. Then the continuing cost is only maintenance, not fuel. These principles also apply to sources of “cold” for cooling buildings in the network. This legislation provides some regulation relief for certain operations to make available the waste heat for this system application.
HB 1462 Reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with hydrofluorocarbons. Hydrofluorocarbons are potent greenhouse gases with global warming potentials that are hundreds to thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide. The widespread use of hydrofluorocarbons in refrigeration, air conditioning, and heat pumps makes them significant contributors to climate change. Although usually short-lived, when vented those gases create an acute warming influence at a critical time in our mitigation efforts. Better working fluid alternatives are available and in use as covered in the LWVWA Action Workshop last December. Improvements such as this will be required as new technologies develop. We have advocated for similar policies in past legislative sessions.
Other Bills We Are Watching
Bills in green are supported. Bills in red are opposed by the League. Bills in black the League is watching.
HB 1018/SB 5241 Adding fusion energy to facilities that may obtain site certification. This bill anticipates construction of nuclear fusion energy facilities in WA. Fusion may completely change the world’s energy landscape when it is developed, perfected, and scaled up. But that time is certainly several decades away and we must get on a pathway to net zero emissions by 2050. Read a summary of recent developments and outlook in fusion energy by a League member.
HB 1249 Creating the commercial liftoff for energy from advanced nuclear advisory commission. This initiates a nuclear energy advisory commission to provide credible perspectives on nuclear energy to the people of the state and to policy makers to include sites for generation and timelines. The League currently has a position against new fission nuclear generation plants.
HB 1253 Expanding the ability of consumer-owned utilities to enter into joint use agreements. Seattle City light proposed this highly technical bill to have access to more generation contracts to fulfil customer requirements as we transition away from fossil fuel in the grid. It takes advantage of IRA funding. Snohomish PUD also supports this policy adjustment.
SB 5036 Strengthening Washington's leadership and accountability on climate policy by transitioning to annual reporting of statewide emissions data. Statistics on our state’s emissions experience a lag of as much as 3 or 4 years. About three quarters of emissions estimates come from reporting to the state government, but the for the rest we depend on data from the federal government. Prompt data reporting from all sources and matching policy implementations with changes would be better, but will require significant additional effort from both government and business. It’s not clear that the legislature will choose to increase the cost of this bookkeeping at this time or that this is the best use of revenue.
SB 5152 Concerning state employee access to peer-reviewed journals. The state does not subscribe to electronic access services for many technical journals and other information sources requiring staff to spend time finding other methods or do without. This bill authorizes $83k for Evergreen State College to study the options and report recommendations. The League supports climate goals and policies that are consistent with the best available climate science (LWVUS).
- If you do nothing else, please scan the Legislative Action Newsletter each week and respond to the Action Alerts.
- If you have more time and are interested in a particular topic, we always appreciate and can use your assessments of bills, law implementation, and future concerns. For climate and energy topics send your assessments of a few paragraphs to a few pages and include the sources of the facts you rely on.
- If you want to engage more in a current topic such as improving building codes, reducing solid waste pollution, or encouraging salmon recovery, one of our coalition partners probably has a focused action project underway that you can join.
- The LWVUS Climate Interest Group also maintains information on addressing climate change for state and local Leagues. Contact me to discuss opportunities, Martin Gibbins, mgibbins@lwvwa.org.