FINAL BILL REPORT

ESSB 6072

PARTIAL VETO

C 264 L 03

Synopsis as Enacted

Brief Description: Funding pollution abatement and response.

Sponsors: Senate Committee on Highways & Transportation (originally sponsored by Senators Horn and Haugen).

Senate Committee on Highways & Transportation

Background: Prior to 2000, each owner of a motor vehicle paid a $2 per vehicle clean air excise tax at the time of initial vehicle registration or renewal. Funds from this fee were used to implement provisions of the Clean Air Act.

Currently, there is a tug boat at the entrance of the Straight of Juan de Fuca, which is used during part of the year to rescue disabled vessels in order to prevent oil spills in the event a vessel goes aground.

Summary: Eighty five percent of the proceeds deposited in the segregated subaccount of the air pollution control account are distributed to local air pollution control authorities and 15 percent of the proceeds are distributed to the Department of Ecology. The funds are used to retrofit school buses with exhaust emission control devices, reduce vehicle emissions, reduce air contaminants, and to provide funding for fueling infrastructure to allow school bus fleets to use alternative cleaner fuels.

The Department of Ecology must provide a report to the legislative transportation committees on the progress of the implementation of the programs funded by the fee deposited in the segregated subaccount of the air pollution control account by December 31, 2004.

Proceeds deposited in the vessel response account are used to fund a tug boat at the entrance of the Straight of Juan de Fuca whose primary mission is to arrest the drift of disabled vessels in order to prevent a spill.

Beginning with the effective date of the act, and until July 1, 2008, the fees collected under RCW 46.12.080, 46.12.170, and 46.12.181 are credited as follows:

    (i)     58.12 percent is credited to a segregated subaccount of the air pollution control account in RCW 70.94.015;

   (ii)     15.71 percent is credited to the vessel response account created in section 3 of this act; and

  (iii)     the remainder is credited into the transportation 2003 account (nickel account).

Beginning July 1, 2008, and thereafter, the fees collected under RCW 46.12.080, 46.12.170, and 46.12.181 are credited to the transportation 2003 account (nickel account).

The vessel response account expires in 2008. The distribution of the air pollution control account created in this act expires in 2008.

Appropriation: $10,000,000 to the Department of Ecology from the air pollution control account, $2,876,000 to the Department of Ecology from the vessel response account, and $200,000 from the oil spill prevention account.

Votes on Final Passage:

Senate       42   6

House       63  35

Effective: July 27, 2003

Partial Veto Summary: The Governor vetoed section 6, which would have inadvertently eliminated the $50 physical inspection fee required for some out-of-state vehicles prior to registration in Washington State.