Welcome to my first E-Newsletter of the 2015 Legislative Session! I greatly appreciate the honor of serving the 40th Legislative District and representing you here in Olympia. Please take a look at some of the issues we will be facing this session, as well as the bills and issues I will be working on. We are off to a running start and I look forward to your calls, emails and letters. Your input is appreciated and vital in the decision making process.
Package of Energy Bills to Reinvent Energy Sector in Washington
With the topic of climate change a major focus of the governor’s agenda, there is much talk and debate about the state’s energy policies — very little of which sheds much light on the real issues facing Washington state’s energy sector today.
Last week I introduced my energy policy bill package on topics ranging from aligning electric utility ratemaking with customer values, promoting distributed generation, encouraging thermal efficiency and adopting appliance efficiency standards, and building the clean energy sector of the state’s economy.
I’ve worked for nearly two decades to reduce this state’s carbon footprint. Day-to-day policy work results in few political speeches, but it lays the foundation for real bottom-up change we need, in order to create jobs and reduce all of our pollution levels. I hope the Senate and governor will engage in the debate on these highly technical energy topics for Washington state’s future.
My package of bills reauthorizes a successful solar production tax incentive that grew the solar sector by 13 percent during the great recession, authorizes third party leasing of renewable systems that provides more access to renewable energy to all income classes of people, and provides an intermediary tool box of options for alternative forms of net metering to help promote distributed generation.
A convergence of different market pressures from customers and clean energy policies are starting to squeeze revenue for our state’s electric utilities. The way utilities currently make money is by how much electricity you use. Current electricity rates are calculated largely on a system that was developed for the railroads during the 1800s. Many argue that we may have hit peak electricity in 2012, meaning on a per capita basis individual energy consumption is going down.
The correct course for Washington is to respond to what utility customers demand, and implement state policies that create green and clean jobs close to home. However, without healthy utilities, we won’t be able to implement these priorities.
I was a lead sponsor of the state’s net metering law, which required utilities to connect customer-owned renewable energy systems, like solar photovoltaic panels, to the grid and ensured that customers would receive compensation for the electricity they produce. But we can’t just rest on our laurels. It’s time to advance state legislative proposals that move our utilities to performance based regulation away from the 19th century and into the 21st.
Here is a list of the bills that have been introduced:
- HB 1093 – Unmanned aircraft
- HB 1094 – Biometric identifiers
- HB 1095 – Thermal energy efficiency
- HB 1096– Electric distribution system
- HB 1097 – Renewable energy/job growth
- HB 1098– Electric utility regulation
- HB 1099 – Contracts over the Internet
- HB 1100– Appliance efficiency
Protecting citizens from drone surveillance and consumer biometric data collection
On January 21, The House Technology and Economic Development Committee held public hearings on two of my proposed bills which would strengthen privacy laws regarding new and emerging technologies.
House Bills 1093 and 1094 would limit the collection of Washingtonians’ personal data by use of unmanned aircraft (drones) and various emerging biometric data collection tools.
As drones become more commonly owned by companies and everyday citizens, state lawmakers are looking at ways to protect citizens from privacy violations. HB 1093 would prohibit drones with active sensing devices from collecting personal information — including images of an individual on private property — without the individual’s consent, unless the federal government has provided specific authorization or the drone is clearly labelled with the name and contact information of the owner.
Technology allowing companies to collect biometric data is not limited to science fiction — iris scans, facial recognition and voice recognition technologies already exist, but have yet to be largely used in the commercial and retail industries. HB 1094 would establish regulations and limitations on how this information could be collected and used in the future.
Under this legislation, the collection of biometric identifiers of an individual for a commercial purpose without consent would be prohibited. After gaining consent from the consumer, the collector could not sell, lease or disclose the data without receiving additional consent. There would be an exemption for sharing biometric data with law enforcement under warrant.
The State Budget
Every two years, the Legislature writes the state budget. The operating budget pays for day-to-day expenses like teacher salaries, health care for low-income families, and prisons. You can read in more detail how the state budget works here.
While our state is slowly recovering from the recession, revenue is not keeping up with the demand for state services. Republican lawmakers say state revenues are up $3 billion from last biennium. While that is true, it’s only half the picture. Our projected expenses are up—way up—more than $3 billion.
Imagine getting a $50 per month raise from your boss. But then your boss increases your health care premiums $75 per month.
It’ll cost about $3 billion just to continue government operations the way they were the last two years. But just continuing what we’ve done before will not be good enough.
The State Supreme Court held the legislature in contempt of court in the McCleary case last year. We need to invest at least $1.3 billion more in K-12 education for McCleary-related expenses to meet our legal and moral obligations.
Also, voters passed an initiative for smaller class sizes which costs an extra $2 billion. We also need significant improvements to our mental health and foster care systems. And we have over 120,000 teachers and state employees that have had their paychecks frozen for six years, reducing their buying power by 16 percent. Good teachers are leaving for other jobs.
The recession hit everyone hard, even the state. We cut $12 billion in state spending since 2008. We cannot cut billions more and expect positive outcomes. In the end, we’re probably looking at some level of spending cuts to go along with some new revenue in order to balance our state budget.
Send me your thoughts – What would you cut from state government? What revenue options should we consider?
Transportation
House Democrats led the way last biennium by passing a transportation package that would have built much-needed infrastructure, reduced traffic congestion, and repaired crumbling roads and bridges.
As Gov. Jay Inslee said, traffic gridlock is so bad now, people are reading War and Peace while they’re stuck on I-5.
A transportation package would help fix that gridlock while creating jobs and giving more options for those who can’t afford a car. It also would have funded projects in our neighborhoods like the Guemes Channel Trail, the Everett Connector, and the Tri County Connector.
Unfortunately, the Senate refused to vote on this critical legislation. Failing to provide the infrastructure necessary to move goods and people quickly threatens our global competitiveness and our ability to create jobs for Washington residents.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
I will continue to push to find solutions to traffic gridlock and more options for getting where you need to go, because that will help people and businesses today while creating jobs and building a better Washington for our kids and grandkids.