Dear friends and neighbors,

The Legislature adjourned Sunday, April 26. It was a long and challenging session, and as you can imagine the $9 billion budget deficit dominated many of the policy conversation. We had a great deal of talk about energy and environmental policies as well as considerable discussion about education reform and funding.

Budget

The budget which passed the Legislature to balance the budget represents a missed opportunity to make some real changes in state government. While $4 billion in cuts were made, almost $5 billion in one-time dollars were used to patch up a budgeting process with serious holes. In two years, we may be right back where we started with another large deficit. I voted "no" on the final budget. House Republicans offered several solutions to prioritize spending and offer more transparency for the public, but these ideas were rejected.

There are some bright spots in the budget, as it includes several important projects for the agriculture industry:

• $500,000 for the Community Agriculture Vocational Institute;
• $150,000 for WSU to research honey bee colony collapse disorder; and
• $150,000 for the apple maggot monitoring program.

While we did not see any comprehensive tax increase proposals pass the Legislature, plenty of fees were adopted that will continue to add to the burden of taxpayers.

Even the capital budget suffered damage as a result of the problems with the operating budget. The capital budget funds the construction of public buildings and critical community infrastructure. This year, the majority approved taking $777 million from this important job-creating budget to pay for ongoing spending in the daily operations of the state. Because of this, I voted 'no' on the capital budget - the first time I've ever done so.

Environmental & energy legislation

Several poorly-written pieces of legislation did not make it through the regular session, such as the regional cap-and-trade proposal. If implemented, this program could put thousands of blue-collar jobs at risk and increase electricity costs for every family in the state.

The proposal would cap the amount of carbon that may be emitted by activities such as energy production and manufacturing. The program would force businesses to buy "allowances" for their emissions. Annually, the amount of allowances available is reduced, so businesses have to either conserve or go out of business if they can't afford the price of allowances. By driving up the cost of energy and manufacturing in Washington, we will lose jobs and energy production to other states that burn more fossil fuels than Washington’s cleaner hydroelectric-based economy.

Until we recognize hydroelectric power as clean, renewable energy in this state, Washington will see increasing energy costs as a result of Initiative 937. In a recent poll, 71 percent of Washington voters supported amending I-937, also known as the Energy Independence Act, to consider hydro power a renewable energy. This year, Senate Bill 5840 would have modified the Energy Independence Act to allow energy companies to find renewable energy in more places, reducing the burden on rate payers. An amendment to the bill, which passed the House, would have added hydro power as a clean energy. Unfortunately, the bill died and so did the component recognizing hydro power as a renewable energy.

Green mandates for public and private buildings did not pass the Senate, so it is dead for now. This bill would have required all homes and buildings to be built more energy efficient, with a 70 percent reduction in energy use over 20 years.

In summary, the environmental policies that have been moving through the Legislature over the last couple of years focus on requirements and mandates, rather than incentives and ingenuity. It's important that we are good environmental stewards of our natural resources, but the most successful environmental movements were a result of positive motivation and innovation, not pressure and creating financial hardship.

Other bill updates

• Senate Bill 5963 stabilized unemployment insurance for over-taxed employers and brought our state into compliance with federal regulations.
• The bill to add burdensome liabilities and regulations on home builders did not make it out of the Senate, so it is dead until next year, unless it is brought up during special session.
• The proposal I sponsored with former Rep. Dan Newhouse to increase school flexibility passed the Legislature and awaits the governor's signature. It will allow five districts with less than 500 students to waive a 180-day requirement but still teach 1,000 in an approved school calendar.
• The employer gag rule, which would have frozen communication between employers and employees on political and religious matters, was killed by majority leadership after they received an e-mail sent by a union to its members linking future campaign contributions with the passage of the bill.
• The original education reform legislation was reduced to a blueprint for where we want to see education funding in the future. While there was important dialog this year, I don't believe we should make promises without funding them. This is part of what got our state into the budget situation we're in now.

After a long and demanding session, it's nice to be back home on the ranch. Please feel free to contact me about these or any other issue that is important to you. My contact information is at the top.

Rep. Bruce Chandler
15th District State Representative

p.s. If you would like to unsubscribe from my e-mail list, click here. Also, please feel free to forward this e-mail to your friends, neighbors and colleagues so they can subscribe to my legislative updates!