WA Senate approves bill to give energy-generating trash incinerator more time to reduce emissions

OLYMPIA – Washington lawmakers are on the verge of an agreement that will give Spokane’s Waste-to-Energy facility a longer timeline to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in compliance with state standards.

City officials and local lawmakers have warned that without such legislation, ratepayers would face increased solid waste bills, as the city spends millions each year as a result of the facility’s carbon emissions.

The state Senate approved legislation Wednesday afternoon that requires the Department of Energy to provide no-cost carbon credits to the facility between 2027 and 2030 as it gradually reduces its carbon emissions. The bill passed on a 39-10 vote.

By December 2030, the owner or operator of the facility must submit a plan to show how it will comply with statewide greenhouse gas emission reduction standards by 2040 and 2050. The facility is also required to produce a plan to reduce waste.

The facility produced more than 234,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents in 2019, though the state would only penalize roughly 100,000 tons of carbon emissions.

The greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program of the Climate Commitment Act exempts landfills, which produce emissions as waste decomposes, but the Waste-to-Energy facility received no such grace from lawmakers.

While the House of Representatives adopted legislation this year to give the facility additional time to comply with state standards, the bill was amended in the Senate committee and will now return to the House of Representatives for final approval.

Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown has traveled to Olympia to push lawmakers to act on the legislation, as officials warned that if the city were to enter the state’s auction for credits for those 100,000 tons, it could come with a cost of $2.5 million to $8 million each year.

City officials feared those extra costs would be paid by ratepayers and the city’s other customers, if it would even still pencil out, Marlene Feist, director of the city’s Public Works division, said in a December interview.

The facility is the only one of its kind in the state, burning the city’s garbage and using the heat produced to generate enough electricity to power 11,000 homes.

“Getting this bill through Ways and Means and passed by the Senate is no easy feat, so I want to extend my sincere thanks to Senator Riccelli for his leadership,” Brown said in a statement Wednesday. “We still have a conference committee to get through, but I’m confident that the chambers will agree this is ready to go to the governor for his signature.”

Ahead of final passage, Sen. Marcus Riccelli, D-Spokane, said without the legislation, “ratepayers and low-income folks would get hit extremely hard.”

Riccelli added that the legislation would give the facility an “onramp to compliance that makes sense.”

State Sen. Jeff Holy, R-Spokane, said Wednesday the bill could serve as a beta program.

“When the math happens, and everyone else figures out that, yeah, it’s good for them, too, because it’s less greenhouse gas emission results from having these things burned and filtered and monitored correctly than it is to transport these multiple semis a day to Adams County,” Holy said.

Under the version passed by the House of Representatives, the facility would still have been required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but on a longer timeline. The legislation stated it must reduce emissions by 20% between 2030 and 2039, by 70% between 2040 and 2049 and 95% each year after 2050.

Lawmakers initially considered a bill that would have established no-cost carbon credits for the facility in a state auction, which received pushback in committee from environmental groups that said there was no requirement in the legislation for the facility to actually reduce emissions.

Reporter Emry Dinman contributed to this article.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that without legislation, ratepayers could face increased solid waste bills, not energy bills.