SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 1010

Passed Legislature - 2017 Regular Session


State of Washington	65th Legislature	2017 Regular Session

By House Environment (originally sponsored by Representatives Shea, Taylor, Holy, Short, McCaslin, Pike, Haler, and Young)

READ FIRST TIME 02/09/17.

AN ACT Relating to directing the department of ecology to submit an annual report to the legislature detailing the department's participation in interagency agreements; amending RCW 43.21A.150; and creating a new section.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The legislature finds that department of ecology pursues its mission of environmental protection within a complicated framework of national, state, and local authorities and responsibilities, and that the department of ecology's roles within this framework are not always readily intelligible to the public. Furthermore, the legislature finds that promoting the transparency of department of ecology activities will bolster the understanding and trust in the agency held by legislators and the Washingtonians they represent. Therefore, it is the intent of the legislature to require the department of ecology to maintain a list of the department's participation in interagency agreements on its web site for the purposes of improving public understanding of the extent and implications of those agreements.

(1) The director, whenever it is lawful and feasible to do so, shall consult and cooperate with the federal government, as well as with other states and Canadian provinces, in the study and control of environmental problems. On behalf of the department, the director is authorized to accept, receive, disburse, and administer grants or other funds or gifts from any source, including private individuals or agencies, the federal government, and other public agencies, for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this chapter.

(2)(a) Beginning December 31, 2017, the director must list on the department's web site information regarding the current interagency agreements to which the department is a party or in which the department is a participant.

(b) The list must identify each agreement, the type of agreement, parties to the agreement, the effective date of the agreement, and a brief description of the agreement. The list must include all interagency agreements involving the department and other state agencies, local governments, special purpose districts, the federal government and federal government agencies, and the agencies of other states.

(c) For the initial list, the department must by December 31, 2017, list all grant agreements and federal agreements where information is readily extractable from the department's data systems. For those data systems that, because of their age, require programming support to extract and format data for publishing to the internet, the department must complete listing the required information according to the following schedule:

(d) Beginning December 1, 2018, the department must annually update the web site to include new interagency agreements that the department has entered into and must identify the agreements that have been updated within the past year.

(e) For the purposes of this section, the term "interagency agreement" includes but is not limited to memoranda of understanding, grant contracts, and advisory or nonbinding agreements.

(f) For purposes of this section, the information posted on the department's web site is considered to function as a report to the legislature because the report acts as a mechanism of keeping the legislature apprised of the department's interagency agreements.