SEATTLE — Don't expect any grand or sweeping climate and environmental laws out of Washington's Capitol during this long legislative session, starting Monday.

Rather, this session is largely about "implementation," said state Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon, D-Burien. That is to say, it's about making sure the state's current policies and initiatives — like the 2021 Climate Commitment Act — work as well as possible.

Lawmakers will start the session with a couple dozen climate and environmental bills in hand, meant to alleviate increasing heat risk in schools, better prepare rural areas for wildfire, shift the cost of recycling onto manufacturers instead of consumers and safeguard front-line communities against pollution and climate change.

But there won't be any big, sexy green transportation spending packages or economywide emissions-reducing proposals.

"The time we're in now is about making the framework we have around climate change and greenhouse gas reductions successful," Fitzgibbon said.

This coming year is also sure to be a transitional time. Donald Trump's incoming presidential administration is increasingly hostile toward climate change and set on relaxing long-standing environmental safeguards in the name of economic development and energy independence.

Plus, Gov.-elect Bob Ferguson will also take the reins from outgoing Gov. Jay Inslee, who took pains to brand himself as "The Climate Governor." Climate and environmental issues are much less of a passion project for the incoming administration, Fitzgibbon acknowledged, allowing more room for lawmakers to lead in that space, even if no major new proposals are on the horizon.

The urgency for climate action is only growing, scientists repeatedly warn. Broad swaths of Southern California are on fire, displacing tens of thousands and signaling the increasing wildfire danger across the American West. Global temperatures continue to hit record levels.

In handily defending the Climate Commitment Act against a contentious repeal effort in November, voters showed they're hungry for more legislation, Fitzgibbon and state Rep. Beth Doglio, D-Olympia, agreed.

"I feel like we have a responsibility as the Environment and Energy Committee to do our very best to try and move us away from climate disaster," said Doglio, who chairs the committee.

Already, state officials are moving to transition major polluters away from fossil fuels and scrambling to add more renewable energy into the grid as demand grows.

"We have a new Legislature, and so what the ebb and flow will be is somewhat unknown. We have some new chairs, new leadership in the Senate and certainly a new governor after 12 years," said Clifford Traisman, a lobbyist for Washington Conservation Action. "That's going to be an interesting element for what kind of governor Bob Ferguson wants to be. We're going to learn very, very shortly here."

A representative for Ferguson said he was unavailable to comment.

Here's a look at some of the measures proposed for the 2025 session in Olympia.

Wildfires and heat waves

Despite the winter rains and snowfall, a third of Washington remains abnormally dry and the state still has not emerged from the drought emergency declared last spring. Warming temperatures worsen wildfire risk.

Forest health and wildfire suppression ought to be a priority this year, said state Reps. Tom Dent and Dan Griffey, Republicans of Moses Lake and Allyn, respectively. Along those lines, the two are sponsoring a bill to empower local ranchers and landowners to fight wildfires and give them more authority, training and equipment to work alongside firefighters when their property is at risk.

House Bill 1048 would create a pilot rangeland fire protection association to test the theory that private citizens could lend a hand when wildfires break out. Dent and Griffey have run versions of the bill at least twice before and each time met substantial pushback from state firefighting agencies, but negotiations have progressed recently and they're optimistic it could pass.

Last year, lawmakers passed a bill requiring electric utilities to create wildfire mitigation plans, and in the near future, Dent said he wants to add to that legislation to protect public utilities from overwhelming costs that might stem from those plans.

At the same time, schools might also soon have additional protections against extreme weather. Facing a widespread shortage of air conditioning in buildings, little money for new equipment and increasingly hot summer days, House Bill 1031 would offer district superintendents the ability to cancel school during particularly hot days, said state Rep. Kristine Reeves, D-Federal Way.

Greenhouse gas

Another portion of lawmakers' efforts will focus on where the state should spend billions collected from its carbon market, Fitzgibbon said. Lawmakers in 2023 earmarked funding priorities for the first two years of revenue from the program, created by the Climate Commitment Act. They'll be building on that framework again this year, Fitzgibbon said, seeing where they might cut back or double down.

For example, a one-time, seed-money investment of $25 million for small nuclear reactors likely doesn't need another batch of funding, Fitzgibbon said. But the state could send more money to streamline the permitting process for renewable energy or transmission projects, incentives for medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicles and charging infrastructure or rebates for heat pumps.

At the same time, the state is facing a $10 billion budget shortfall. Fitzgibbon said he doesn't expect any attempts to raid the Climate Commitment Act coffers for any nonclimate-change-related initiatives. But lawmakers could transition old climate spending, previously funded by the state's general fund, over to the CCA's balance sheets, he said.

Additional work would aim to understand baseline greenhouse gas emissions.

Senate Bill 5036 would require the state Department of Commerce to submit a report each December calculating the total greenhouse gas emissions produced that year and outlining the sources of those emissions.

Similarly, House Bill 1015 would allow cities and counties to require homeowners to obtain a report outlining the property's energy performance, carbon footprint and identifying ways to improve energy efficiency.

Pollution and waste

More than half of Washington's consumer packaging and paper products are heading to landfills, Zero Waste Washington says. These materials ultimately end up in the environment and studies have shown microplastics are in reproductive organs, breast milk and arteries.

A survey from the state Department of Ecology found that a majority of people asked believe recycling should be accessible and free. Eleven of Washington's counties have no curbside recycling service available.

Environmental advocates are hoping they've built the momentum to pass sweeping reform of the state's recycling practices. The legislation has been vetted widely since lawmakers introduced the first iteration of the recycling reform bill in 2022.

House Bill 1150, sponsored by Rep. Liz Berry, D-Seattle, would shift the burden of recycling costs from consumers to brands and manufacturers. It would create a producer responsibility program that would collect fees from producers based on the type of packaging and paper products they make and how easy they are to recycle.

Sen. Liz Lovelett, D-Anacortes, will sponsor a companion bill.

Rep. Jake Fey, D-Tacoma, has filed an alternative bill that proposes to first conduct a needs assessment before passing more prescriptive legislation on how to address recycling rates.

Environmental justice advocates are hoping lawmakers will move to address pollution in communities surrounded by major industries.

Redlining, racial covenants and other discriminatory mortgage and land-use processes shaped some of the environmental health disparities experienced by some pollution-overburdened communities today — flanked by highways, with limited tree canopy to protect from extreme heat, and downwind of industrial centers.

The Cumulative Risk Burden Pollution Act, or CURB, would require permitting agencies to produce an environmental justice review for all projects. For neighborhoods already exposed to high levels of toxic pollution, it would require a review of the cumulative impacts. It would make permitting agencies require businesses that would add unacceptable levels of pollution in these communities to mitigate the impacts, or the proposed project could be denied.

The bill, as drafted, would deny businesses the ability to claim economics as a public benefit of a potentially toxic project.

Rep. Sharlett Mena, D-Tacoma, the pollution bill's prime sponsor, will also take another shot at a fashion industry transparency bill.

The fashion industry accounts for nearly 20% of global wastewater, with fabric dyes polluting water bodies and impacting aquatic life and drinking water, the bill states, adding the industry accounts for about 8-10% of global carbon emissions, more than both aviation and shipping combined.

Mena's bill, House Bill 1107, would require certain clothing producers to provide data on their environmental impacts, including chemicals used in their products, waste disposal practices, labor practices and greenhouse gas emissions.

The bill would task Ecology with an assessment of policy options for clothing and footwear brands to reduce environmental impacts associated with their products. It would also empower Ecology to assess fines for companies that fail to meet disclosure requirements. The revenue would be applied to environmental benefit projects that benefit overburdened communities and vulnerable populations.

©2025 The Seattle Times. Visit seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.