S-1128

AN ACT Relating to environmental policy; creating new sections; making an appropriation; and providing an expiration date.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS AND PURPOSE. (1) The legislature makes the following findings:

(a) The Washington environment 2010 project identified several priority environmental threats that must be addressed to maintain and improve the state's environmental quality over the next twenty years;

(b) The action agenda of the 2010 project noted that the traditional methods of environmental regulation, commonly described as the "command and control" approach of pollutant source regulation, is unlikely to be adequate to address the magnitude and nature of environmental problems facing the state in the future;

(c) New environmental quality strategies such as pollution prevention, consumer education, market incentives to pollutant discharge reduction, and comprehensive cross-media regulation hold great promise to achieve equal or greater environmental protection as traditional strategies at comparable or reduced societal costs;

(d) However, these new strategies are limited by several factors, such as the frequent inability to compete for limited public funds against programs employing traditional strategies, many of which are protected by dedicated sources of funding;

(e) An additional limitation is the delegation of administration of federal environmental programs to the state for which adherence to the traditional "command and control" strategies is a condition of maintaining the delegated authority;

(f) Moreover, there is often a great disparity of funding among the existing regulatory programs when compared with the potential benefits to protection of the public health and the environment of each program, resulting in part from the lack of a comprehensive development of environmental policies over the past twenty years and more;

(g) The availability of public funds for environmental protection will continue to be less than overall needs for the foreseeable future, as is the case with virtually all governmental programs, and therefore it is vitally important that existing fiscal resources be devoted to those environmental issues posing the greatest risks to the state;

(h) The 2010 project found that many environmental threats are the cumulative effect of many actions of individuals that considered in isolation would appear to have minimal environmental impact, and therefore environmental quality strategies should be directed at these actions of all Washington citizens, through a variety of approaches including education, regulation, and the allocation of responsibility for funding programs to address environmental quality problems.

(2) The legislative purpose of this act is:

(a) To use the information learned in the Washington 2010 project in an analysis of existing state environmental programs and the ability of such programs to address Washington's future environmental quality problems;

(b) To develop new environmental strategies that will achieve greater environmental protection within existing fiscal constraints;

(c) To assess the allocation of existing fiscal resources for environmental programs in light of the relative magnitude of environmental threats addressed by such programs, and to take action through budgetary and other processes to apply relatively greater fiscal resources to those problems presenting greater threats; and

(d) To improve environmental monitoring and data management for use in administering environmental programs and in making policy decisions, and to determine environmental trends in the state over time.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. COMMISSION ON ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGIES CREATED. There is created the commission on environmental strategies. The commission shall be comprised of five members appointed as follows: (1) One member appointed by the legislative leader of each major political caucus in the senate and house of representatives; and (2) a chair appointed by the four members appointed under subsection (1) of this section. The members should represent a balance of interests and perspectives on the committee, including those of the general public, environment, business, agriculture, and government. A representative of the United States environmental protection agency shall be invited to participate on the commission as a nonvoting member.

The commission may establish subcommittees for the performance of any of its duties, provided that the full commission take action on any final findings or recommendations of the commission. The department of ecology shall provide necessary staff and facilities to the commission in the performance of its duties under this act.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. COMMISSION DUTIES. The commission shall:

(1) Review existing environmental programs in the state of Washington, to assess the capability of the regulatory and other methods employed by such programs to address Washington's environmental problems over the next twenty years;

(2) Review and make recommendations regarding alternative methods to achieve comparable or greater environmental protection per unit of fiscal resources. Some examples include:

(a) Market incentives, such as marketable permits or auctions of emission allowances;

(b) Integrated permits;

(d) Pollution prevention programs;

(e) Public education; and

(f) Reduced permit requirements for closed-loop industrial processes;

(3) Review the relative risk reduction among environmental programs in comparison with relative levels of fiscal resources committed to such programs, and make recommendations regarding budgetary proposals to achieve greater risk reduction and environmental protection;

(4) Review the relationships between federal and state programs addressing the same or similar environmental problems, and make recommendations to avoid duplicative or inconsistent regulatory requirements and to achieve greater efficiencies in public fiscal resources;

(5) Analyze existing proposals for environmental trust funds proposed at the federal level and in other states, as well as by the private sector, and make recommendations regarding the creation of such a fund for the purpose of providing a comprehensive funding mechanism for environmental quality problems in this state;

(6) Review existing environmental monitoring and data management programs and make recommendations regarding improvements to achieve comprehensive assessments of environmental quality and to establish information on environmental trends over time.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 4. (1) The commission shall meet as frequently as is necessary to successfully carry out its duties. Meetings shall be called by the chair, except that a meeting may be called at any time upon request to the chair of three or more members of the commission.

(2) The commission shall seek comments from the public in conducting its reviews and in developing its findings and recommendations.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 5. The commission may enter contracts for the performance of work necessary to assist the commission in its duties under this act.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 6. All state agencies shall cooperate with the commission in performing its duties by providing information regarding environmental programs that is requested by the commission.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 7. (1) The findings and recommendations of the commission shall be provided to the governor and the standing environmental committees of the legislature periodically as they are completed by the commission.

(2) Notwithstanding subsection (1) of this section, all findings and recommendations of the commission regarding its duties under section 3 of this act shall be forwarded to the governor and the standing environmental committees of the legislature no later than December 15, 1992.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 8. Two hundred thousand dollars or as much thereof as may be necessary, is appropriated to the department of ecology from the general fund for the biennium ending June 30, 1993, for the purposes of this act.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 9. Sections 1 through 7 of this act and the commission on environmental strategies shall expire June 30, 1993.