OLYMPIA — Bills from 19th District representatives involving tow truck safety, family burials, recycling, historical guns and a nickname for the state are closer to becoming law.
Wednesday is the deadline for bills to leave their chamber of origin. Four bills from Sen. Jeff Wilson, R-Longview, have passed the Senate as of Thursday afternoon, while one bill from Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, passed the House. The session ends in April.
The highest-profile bill is the successful return of a tow truck safety bill local legislators worked on last year. Wilson and Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, introduced companion bills in 2022 after the deaths of two Cowlitz County tow truck drivers along Interstate 5 in the span of a few months.
Orcutt’s version passed the House last year but didn’t pass the Senate during the shorter session. Other tow truck safety measures were approved by the Legislature last year, including a funding increase for driver education programs.
Wilson’s bill this year, Senate Bill 5023, allows tow truck drivers to use flashing blue lights while at the scene of an accident to increase their visibility to drivers. It also requires drivers on highways or other high-speed roads to reduce their speed below 50 mph while passing a tow truck in an emergency zone.
“This is about the safety of those drivers who are responding and us, everyday people that need those services, who need to be safe while we are in our cars along the roadway,” Wilson said.
The bill is unofficially named after the two Cowlitz County drivers who were killed in 2021, Arthur Anderson, owner of Longview’s Affordable Towing, and Raymond Mitchell, who worked for Ridgefield’s TLC Towing.
Burials
Walsh’s House Bill 1037 concerns private family burial grounds. Walsh said previous legislation about the proper disposal of human remains had begun blurring the lines around the legality of small family cemeteries.
“It’s a great tradition of living in the West. It’s something many homesteaders and local families have done, but in the state law it was unclear if it was legal or not,” Walsh said.
The bill, which unanimously passed the House Monday, provides an official definition and protections for private burials on family-owned land for immediate relatives. The defined protections will cover existing burial grounds and separates them from some of the requirements and tax exemptions on public cemeteries.
Green energy, state
A pair of Wilson’s bills related to green energy passed the Senate unanimously Monday.
Senate Bill 5542 places further restrictions on the scrap sales of electric vehicle charging stations to prevent theft. The bill adds EV chargers and supplies to the list of scrap metal sources that are regulated and tracked by scrap metal businesses along with street lights, traffic signals and brand-new construction materials.
Senate Bill 5287 tasks the Washington State University Energy Program with studying how to recycle the state’s wind turbines. While the vast majority of the materials used to make turbine blades are recyclable, the American Clean Power Association reports the majority of old blades end up in landfills.
The WSU branch will look into various recycling methods for the old turbines and the potential for a state-managed program or industry support, which Wilson said could lead to new businesses in Washington. The bill would require a report back to the Legislature by Dec. 1.
“Putting them in landfills is not a responsible closed-loop or an environmental ending for something labeled green energy,” Wilson said.
On Thursday the Senate passed Wilson’s bill 5436, easing gun transfers to museums and historical societies. The Cowlitz County Historical Museum had run into issues getting old firearms donated because of the background check requirement for the organization.
Wilson was the first-listed sponsor out of 40 senators on Senate Bill 5595, which would make “the evergreen state” Washington’s official nickname. The bill unanimously passed the Senate on Feb. 20.
