70.235.030 - Development of a design for a regional multisector market-based system to limit and reduce emissions of greenhouse gas -- Information required to be submitted to the legislature.

Development of a design for a regional multisector market-based system to limit and reduce emissions of greenhouse gas — Information required to be submitted to the legislature.

(1)(a) The director shall develop, in coordination with the western climate initiative, a design for a regional multisector market-based system to limit and reduce emissions of greenhouse gas consistent with the emission reductions established in RCW 70.235.020(1).

     (b) By December 1, 2008, the director and the director of the *department of community, trade, and economic development shall deliver to the legislature specific recommendations for approval and request for authority to implement the preferred design of a regional multisector market-based system in (a) of this subsection. These recommendations must include:

     (i) Proposed legislation, necessary funding, and the schedule necessary to implement the preferred design by January 1, 2012;

     (ii) Any changes determined necessary to the reporting requirements established under RCW 70.94.151; and

     (iii) Actions that the state should take to prevent manipulation of the multisector market-based system designed under this section.

     (2) In developing the design for the regional multisector market-based system under subsection (1) of this section, the department shall consult with the affected state agencies, and provide opportunity for public review and comment.

     (3) In addition to the information required under subsection (1)(b) of this section, the director and the director of the *department of community, trade, and economic development shall submit the following to the legislature by December 1, 2008:

     (a) Information on progress to date in achieving the requirements of chapter 14, Laws of 2008;

     (b) The final recommendations of the climate advisory team, including recommended most promising actions to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases or otherwise respond to climate change. These recommendations must include strategies to reduce the quantity of emissions of greenhouse gases per distance traveled in the transportation sector;

     (c) A request for additional resources and statutory authority needed to limit and reduce emissions of greenhouse gas consistent with chapter 14, Laws of 2008 including implementation of the most promising recommendations of the climate advisory team;

     (d) Recommendations on how projects funded by the green energy incentive account in RCW 43.325.040 may be used to expand the electrical transmission infrastructure into urban and rural areas of the state for purposes of allowing the recharging of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles;

     (e) Recommendations on how local governments could participate in the multisector market-based system designed under subsection (1) of this section;

     (f) Recommendations regarding the circumstances under which generation of electricity or alternative fuel from landfill gas and gas from anaerobic digesters may receive an offset or credit in the regional multisector market-based system or other strategies developed by the department; and

     (g) Recommendations developed in consultation with the department of natural resources and the department of agriculture with the climate advisory team, the college of forest resources at the University of Washington, and the Washington State University, and a nonprofit consortium involved in research on renewable industrial materials, regarding how forestry and agricultural lands and practices may participate voluntarily as an offset or other credit program in the regional multisector market-based system. The recommendations must ensure that the baseline for this offset or credit program does not disadvantage this state in relation to another state or states. These recommendations shall address:

     (i) Commercial and other working forests, including accounting for site-class specific forest management practices;

     (ii) Agricultural and forest products, including accounting for substitution of wood for fossil intensive substitutes;

     (iii) Agricultural land and practices;

     (iv) Forest and agricultural lands set aside or managed for conservation as of, or after, June 12, 2008; and

     (v) Reforestation and afforestation projects.

[2008 c 14 § 4.]

Notes: *Reviser's note: The "department of community, trade, and economic development" was renamed the "department of commerce" by 2009 c 565.