By Maggie Murdoch
Sound News
February 20, 2009
It was a beautiful, sparkling day at the capitol. Hundreds of environmental activists gathered for Environmental Lobby Day to let legislators know that the people who vote for them demand courageous action on our most pressing environmental concerns. Suits mingled with hippies, students with politicians. Four priorities were on everyone’s mind.
Each year, the 24 groups that make up the Environmental Priorities Coalition get together and decide which out of the many proposed bills will have the most important environmental outcomes. Instead of Earth Ministry lobbying for one thing, and Transportation Choices Coalition another, as was done in the past, the entire environmental community focuses its energy on these four priorities.
Jessie Dye, from Earth Ministry, compared the legislative process to a reproductive strategy where a creature produces large numbers of offspring, with only a few surviving to adulthood. “It is amazing anything survives this process,” she quipped, “which is…why picking four to steward…through is very helpful”.
This strategy has proven successful thus far. Last year, all four priorities were passed into law, and the year before that, three out of four made it through the long and winding legislative process. This year, a year of devastating budget decisions, environmentalists are cautiously optimistic.
The four priorities, a cap and invest bill, an energy efficiency bill, a transit-oriented development bill, and a stormwater runoff bill, were selected for their broad appeal, the magnitude and multitude of their effects, and because they will cost the state budget very little.
In fact, some of them would even save the state money. Currently, the state pays $38 million from the general fund to clean up stormwater. If passed, the ‘Invest in Clean Water’ bill would generate about $100 million from a fee levied on oil companies to clean up oil that runs off the streets from cars and spills. This runoff adds up to the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez spill in the Sound every year.
“I’m not optimistic that we’re gonna see movement on this bill as is in this session”, 46th district representative Scott White told a group of his constituents. He told the group the he did support the bill, but that the oil companies have well-paid and powerful lobbyists. Still, White says, “we have to start to be able to invest more in…our surface water treatment programs…for the health of the Sound, we’ve got to.”
“We just need to try to get more people out of their cars though transit oriented development and other incentives”, White continued, expressing his support for the Transit-Oriented Communities bill. This bill would require local governments to consider greenhouse gas emissions in the environmental assessments done for all new developments. The bill would also encourage compact development, increased density, affordable housing, and green spaces near transit hubs.
The bill passed out of the House committee yesterday morning. Yesterday afternoon, the Senate held a public hearing on the bill. It seemed that all 500 of the activists from across the state that came to lobby day were gathered in the hall outside of the hearing room. The room itself was full long before the hearing even began.
The environmental community will need to continue to press legislators to pass this bill, because many powerful and seasoned lobbyists, like Van Collins from the Associated General Contractors of Washington, oppose the bill. Collins testified at the hearing, calling “greenhouse gas reductions…nebulous, global and circumspect.” He said that China’s annual emissions were eclipsing Washington State’s every thirty days, insinuating that greenhouse gasses were their problem, not ours.
What he doesn’t seem to get is that we all are in this together, and that while coordinated global action is immensely important, every person, neighborhood, and city has tools available to them to reduce their cut of the emissions. Choosing inaction over action would continue the terrible precedent set by the first Bush administration and continued by Clinton and George W.
We can’t afford that, in economic terms or in terms of our country’s moral standing in the world. We must choose the right thing. Hopefully the hundreds of people gathered inside and out of the hearing room will make this a mandate.
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UPDATE: Since returning from Environmental lobby day flush with excitement, I’ve been reading up on other opinions, some of which have legitimate concerns about the bill. Look for upcoming blogs on this site to analyze different sides, and read this story from Crosscut. Still, many things about the bill make good environmental and social sense, and if neighborhoods retain some control over how density occurs, the bill could be a success.
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The most important thing citizens can do to encourage the legislature is to call or email their elected representatives regularly. The legislature hotline can be reached at 1-800-562-600, or go to www.leg.wa.gov to send an email. Dye, of Earth Ministry, urged constituents to do this regularly, as much as every week, to make sure they get the message, even if your representatives are already supportive. Using the hotline or email is quick and easy, and just might help reduce global warming or that Exxon Valdez sized oil drip from flowing into the Sound.
To see how your elected officials vote on important environmental bills, check out the Washington Conservation Voter’s Scorecard.