A fiscal relief measure that would give local governments breathing room on deadlines for preparing expensive land-use and shoreline plans and converting their vehicle fleets to alternative fuels passed the House last week on a bipartisan 86-11 vote.
Vancouver, Ridgefield and Battle Ground are among Washington cities that are pinning their hopes on House Bill 1478. But the bill may face a challenge in the Senate as environmentalists fight a provision that would give local governments more time to update their land-use and shoreline management plans.
Mark Brown, a legislative lobbyist for the cities of Vancouver, Battle Ground, Ridgefield, Longview and Lacey, said HB 1478 is one of his clients’ top priorities this year, “probably second only to the general focus on ‘Do no harm, leave state-shared revenue alone, and no unfunded mandates.’”
He said he’s optimistic that the bill will win bipartisan support in the Senate as it did on the House floor. The entire Clark County delegation — Reps. Jim Moeller, Jim Jacks and Tim Probst, all Democrats, and Republican Reps. Ed Orcutt, Ann Rivers, Paul Harris, Bruce Chandler and David Taylor — voted for the bill.
In the Senate, the bill will be heard in the Government Operations, Tribal Relations and Elections Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Craig Pridemore, D-Vancouver.
Brown said wish lists from his local government clients were modest this year.
“We know this isn’t the time to ask the Legislature for money,” he said. “They don’t have any. This bill doesn’t cost the state one red cent. We don’t repeal any mandates. Everything is about slowing things down and avoiding costs in the short term.”
Pushing back deadlines will allow time for the economy to improve and for local governments to recoup lost revenue, he said.
HB 1478 would amend the Growth Management Act and the Shoreline Management Act, requiring cities and counties covered by the laws to update their plans only every 10 years rather than every seven years, as now required.
That’s the one part of the bill smart-growth advocates oppose.
“We really understand and appreciate the situation cities and counties are in across the state, and we have been willing to work with them to find lower-cost solutions,” said April Putney, co-director of the environmental group Futurewise. “Just last year we supported a bill that gave them temporary relief from growth management plans,” extending deadlines from 2011 to 2014, she said.
“But what this bill does in regard to GMA is, it permanently delays the update cycle from seven years to 10 years,” Putney added. “We don’t think that’s a response to the recession. It’s a fundamental weakening of the law.”
A key provision of the House measure is that it would extend the deadline local governments face for converting their fleets from gasoline and diesel to electricity, biodiesel or other alternative fuels under the state’s climate change strategy. The current state deadline is 2015; the bill would extend that deadline to 2018.
Brown said the fleet conversion could cost Vancouver a net $14 million, Battle Ground more than $1 million and Ridgefield $700,000 after figuring in the revenue they would recoup from selling their gas-powered vehicles.
“At a time when we are closing fire stations in Vancouver, this makes no sense at all,” he said. “We have to slow this down. The Legislature needs to spend more time studying what this overwhelming mandate will cost.”
A top priority for many Clark County communities is relief from new stormwater control provisions in the federal Clean Water Act.
Brown said local governments have reached an agreement with the Department of Ecology that will extend existing stormwater permits by one year and require implementation of new permits no sooner than 2013, in effect providing a one-year delay. That will give cities and counties a year to come up with funding sources to pay for new stormwater control systems.
“Cities and counties are spending $300 million a year just to comply with existing stormwater rules,” Brown said. “We have to come up with a new funding source before we put in a whole new band of stormwater rules.”
The same applies to new Department of Ecology rules dealing with reclaimed water facilities, he said. Such facilities capture stormwater and treated wastewater for use in irrigation and fire suppression.
Several communities have installed such eco-friendly facilities, Brown said.
“The problem is, Ecology has a proposed regulation that may make it so expensive that no one is ever going to want to install another reclaimed water facility,” he said. “The permit is being written with a whole new band of requirements that are far more costly. We need more time to work with Ecology to come up with a better approach.”
The pending legislation slows down implementation of the permit for reclaimed water facilities to no sooner than 2013.
Kathie Durbin: 360-735-4523 or kathie.durbin@columbian.com.
