By / Kathleen Collins, SMACNA Legislative Consultant
The 2020 session starts January 13 and will run for 60 days. The short session is intended to provide a “tune-up” for the state’s two-year budgets. The general fund budget should not be a problem. In 2019 the Legislature enacted several tax increases that provide a revenue stream for education and other programs. There won’t be a lot of activity with the capital budget. But it is a different story for the transportation budget that will see a 12 percent shortfall in 2020 created by the passage of Initiative 976, the $30 car tab initiative passed in November. Even if the court issues a stay of I-976, the Transportation Committee chairs have said they intend to make the cuts to the budget to conform it to I-976. Cuts will not only be made to transit programs that rely on the state’s car tab revenue, but could also spill over to the road project side as well. The effort to re-balance the transportation budget could kick the 2020 session into overtime.
Old Issues likely to be in play
The 2019 session was an active year for climate and carbon issues. Governor Inslee got three of his major proposals – energy efficient buildings, clean electricity and a future ban on HFCs. He will try again in 2020 for his fourth major proposal, a low carbon fuel standard for vehicles (LCFS). An LCFS law would require the petroleum manufacturers to produce gas and diesel that have a lower carbon content or to buy credits to compensate. Oregon and California have LCFS laws. LCFS is opposed by the petroleum industry and many businesses because they believe it would increase the price of gas and is not an achievable mandate. LCFS is a top priority for the environmental groups in 2020. Absent action by the state Legislature, the Puget Sound Air Quality Authority is posed to enact a local LCFS. Governor Inslee will also be proposing legislation to set a higher greenhouse gas reduction goal and to require car dealers to make more zero-emission cars available for sale in Washington.
There may be a push to expand the energy efficient building law passed in 2019 to smaller commercial structures and potentially residential structures. Since the new law is still in the implementation stage, the chances of this effort succeeding are not good. There will be bills to make it easier for home owners to finance energy efficiency upgrades and these bills are likely to gain traction in 2020.
New issue – Fire Life Safety
SMACNA will be working with Local 66 and the State Building Trades Council to promote a bill that would require enforcement of the current NFPA codes on inspection and testing of fire dampers, smoke dampers, and smoke control systems. We will also be asking that only persons with specific training from the International Certification Board as a HVAC Fire Life Safety Technician be allowed to do the work. The training program would need to be accredited by ANSI under the ISO/IEC 17024 standard. Details on the implementation are still being worked out.
Public Works Contracting Will be Studied
In 2019 there was a large number of bid limit increase bills from different government organizations. They were consolidated into one bill, SB 5418, and passed along with some changes to public works contracting statutes. The yearly inundation of bills on this topic spurred the Legislature to also call for a study of public works contracting processes for local governments. The study will look at common contracting procedures, bid limit amounts, the need for an inflation adjustment to bid limits, recommendations for uniformity and efficiency across local governments and barriers to participation in small works and limited works contracting The study won’t be done until November, 2020 so we do not expect a lot of bills on public works contracting in the upcoming session.
SMACNA will keep you updated on important legislative activities during session. Please call the SMACNA office if you have questions or concerns. ▪
