Future Hazy For Bill To Cut Grass Burning Bill May Not Get Hearing, But Brown May Appeal To Senate

Rep. Lisa Brown promised last year to give Spokane’s air quality cops more clout in their battle to curtail grass burning.

The Spokane Democrat introduced legislation Wednesday that would give state and local regulators more power to consider health risks of grass smoke.

But it’s unlikely the bill, HB2271, will get a hearing in the House.

That’s because Gary Chandler, Republican chairman of the House Agriculture and Ecology Committee, doesn’t intend to schedule one.

“We’ve already addressed Spokane’s concerns,” the Moses Lake hay farmer and orchardist said Wednesday.

Chandler was referring to a grass industry-supported bill passed last session that yanked the authority of the Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority to limit the bluegrass burning season.

Chandler also said he didn’t think grasssmoke pollution was a major problem in Spokane.

“I told (Spokane) county, when they clean up their (unpaved) roads, we’ll deal with the smoke pollution,” Chandler said.

That stance angered a leader of Spokane’s Save Our Summers clean-air coalition.

“I couldn’t be more offended by the idea that last year’s bill addressed all our concerns. It did just the opposite,” said Patricia Hoffman, a Spokane Valley veterinarian.

Chandler’s decision could backfire, Brown warned.

“I think by not giving the bill a hearing, they are saying they just don’t want input from the people of Spokane. Both sides get represented in a hearing,” she said.

If she can’t get a hearing in the House, Brown said she’ll ask for one in the Senate, where Democrats are still in control.

Sen. Karen Fraser has already expressed regrets that no Spokane doctors or clean air groups were heard in last year’s debate. The Olympia Democrat visited Spokane last fall to hear the concerns of people with lung disease.

Under Brown’s new bill, the state Department of Ecology would have increased powers to limit the acres grass farmers burn each year if the curbs are necessary to protect public health.

“The people of Spokane don’t have the option of moving their homes to a no-smoking area,” Brown said. “I want state laws to say, in no uncertain terms, that protecting the public’s health is a top goal of pollution rules.”

, DataTimes