Dear neighbors,
Session is more than halfway done!
We just passed a critical date for policy bills to pass each chamber. I’m happy to say after 10 straight days and nights of voting, often until 2 a.m. or 4 a.m., the House passed 257 bills before the deadline.
Most of those bills were bipartisan, with 172 receiving more than 80 votes and a total of 105 bills passing with unanimous support.
Next, the Senate considers all the legislation we sent over, while we start with Senate bills in committees before another marathon session of votes on the House floor.
We’ll also have budget proposals soon, and I’ll reach out with information on how those budgets would affect us back home in the 1st District.
Legislation that passed the House
Every year, 80 percent of bills die. The legislative process is designed that way, to be slow and deliberative.
I introduced 10 bills this session and am happy to say that five passed the House.
Landfills gone rogue (House Bill 1154)
This one is a little crazy. It’s common sense that whoever operates a landfill should do so responsibly. Yet the law is practically toothless when it comes to dealing with bad actors who break state laws and ignore local regulations. There are two landfills near Yakima that have been on fire for years, I kid you not. This legislation puts teeth into our laws so we can stop folks from being harmed by landfill pollution in their water or nasty smoke in the air. The bill passed the House 58-39.
Building codes (House Bill 1183)
This legislation makes it more affordable to build housing. It incentivizes passive house and mass timber housing, cutting red tape so there’s no requirements for upper-level setbacks or façade modulations. It also makes it easier to have rooftop solar and retrofit existing housing to be more energy efficient, saving you money. It passed the House 56-39.
Local government planning (House Bill 1135)
This closes a loophole in the law that allowed local governments to be out of compliance with the state’s Growth Management Act, which is critical to build smart, save money, and avoid more suburban sprawl. It passed the House 56-40.
Project permits (House Bill 1935)
A major reform we passed in 2023 is improving the permit process to build housing faster. The problem is a glitch in that law involving how building permits were defined. This legislation fixes the confusion and lets us all move forward with speeding things up. It passed the House 96-0.
Refrigerant gases (House Bill 1462)
These aren’t the gases in your kitchen fridge. This legislation deals with the refrigerant gases in heat pumps, grocery stores, and other places. The gases are thousands of times more harmful to our climate than carbon dioxide, come from China, and need to be phased out. There are healthier alternatives already on the market. This passed the House 59-38.
Keep in touch!
Please reach out if you have ideas, comments, or questions about legislation.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and to participate in your democracy.
I hope you can join our telephone town hall!
