SENATE BILL REPORT

SB 6072

As Reported By Senate Committee On:

Highways & Transportation, April 10, 2003

Title: An act relating to funding pollution abatement and response.

Brief Description: Funding pollution abatement and response.

Sponsors: Senators Horn and Haugen.

Brief History:

Committee Activity: Highways & Transportation: 4/10/03 [DPS, DNP].

SENATE COMMITTEE ON HIGHWAYS & TRANSPORTATION

Majority Report: That Substitute Senate Bill No. 6072 be substituted therefor, and the substitute bill do pass.

      Signed by Senators Horn, Chair; Swecker, Vice Chair; Finkbeiner, Haugen, Jacobsen, Kastama, Oke, Prentice and Spanel.

Minority Report: Do not pass.

      Signed by Senators Benton, Vice Chair; and Mulliken.

Staff: Mike Groesch (786-7434)

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 of Substitute Bill: A $1.25 clean air/water fee is imposed on registered owners of motor vehicles. One dollar of each fee must be deposited in a segregated subaccount of the air pollution control account and 25 cents of each fee must be deposited in the vessel response account.

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.

The clean air/water fee expires July 1, 2008.

Substitute Bill Compared to Original Bill: The original bill was not considered.

Appropriation: $10,000,000 to the Department of Ecology from the air pollution control account and $2,676,000 to the Department of Ecology from the vessel response account.

Fiscal Note: Not requested.

Effective Date: Ninety days after adjournment of session in which bill is passed.

Testimony For: The bill restores clean air funding eliminated by I-695. Please extend the expiration date of the bill. Please do not constrict uses of the clean air account to just school buses. Please add the ability to accept federal funds to the vessel account.

Testimony Against: None.

Testified: PRO: Mike Moore, Puget Sound Steamship Operators; Mike Harbour, Washington State Transit Association; Randy Winders, Intercity Transit; Gordon Baxter, Inland Boatmen's Union, ILWU; Mike Ryherd, Puget Sound Clean Air Agency; Nick Federici, American Lung Association of Washington; Bruce Wishart, People for Puget Sound; Jim Boldt, Port of Tacoma; Steve Robinson, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission; Peter Thein, Washington State Transit Association.