WA ecology department declares nearly statewide drought emergency

As part of his plan for Downtown Seattle’s post-pandemic recovery, Mayor Bruce Harrell announced this week that he is sending legislation to the City Council to allow more business types to set up shop in vacant storefronts in the greater Downtown area.

The proposed legislation would apply to areas in Belltown, South Lake Union, Lower Queen Anne/Uptown and Downtown that currently allow retail, restaurants and bars and entertainment as well as libraries, museums, child care and religious facilities in street-level commercial spaces.

The bill would expand those allowed uses to include medical offices, research and development labs, food processing, horticultural operations, crafts manufacturing and art installations. The proposal also leaves the door open for other business types not covered by that list to apply for a permit from the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

While the legislation would change the allowed permitting for three years, businesses established during that period would be allowed to stay indefinitely.

In addition to expanded uses, the proposed legislation would modify zoning regulations to allow smaller business spaces, making it easier for smaller-scaled businesses to set up shop. The bill would allow businesses to be a minimum of 8 feet deep instead of the current 15-foot minimum Downtown and 30-foot minimum in Belltown.

Finally, the bill would modify zoning rules to encourage businesses to occupy the second floor of office towers rather than filling only ground floor spaces.  

As is the case in many U.S. cities, Downtown Seattle has struggled in the wake of the pandemic, driven in large part by hybrid office work reducing daily foot traffic. Other than a dip around the winter holidays, Downtown worker foot traffic has mostly hovered around 55% of pre-pandemic levels since August 2023, according to the Downtown Seattle Association. Office vacancies in the central business district have continued to rise, hitting 24% at the end of last year and predicted to increase to 30% by the end of 2024.

Harrell has made Downtown recovery a centerpiece of his first Mayoral term. His Downtown Activation Plan is a laundry list of ideas meant to bolster economic recovery through tourism, increased numbers of Downtown residents and more.

In mid-March, Harrell transmitted legislation to the City Council to incentivize the conversion of office buildings into apartments and other uses. Last fall the Council passed legislation to rezone Third Avenue between Union and Stewart Streets to increase commercial and residential density, legislation to allow more hotel construction in Belltown and waived permit fees for food trucks and carts and small-to-medium street and sidewalk events. 

Washington is set to create a state-run automatic retirement savings system for workers who don’t already have access to an employer-based retirement system.

Washington Saves will require businesses without retirement plans for employees to allow their workers an opportunity to contribute to an individual retirement account (IRA) via an automatic payroll deduction through the Washington Small Business Retirement Marketplace. Employers will be required to enroll employees who have had continuous employment of one year or more in the program at default contribution rates. Employees may opt out. Washington Saves will launch for enrollees in 2027, according to a press release from the office of State Treasurer Mike Pellicciotti, who requested the legislation.

According to an analysis by AARP in 2022, about 43% of Washington workers in the private sector work for a company that doesn’t offer retirement plans — about 1.2 million people. Lack of access also varies by demographics — 66% of Hispanic workers, 47% of Black workers and 43% of Asian American workers do not have access to an employer-provided plan in Washington. Overall, 42% of all men and 44% of all women do not have such a plan. The legislation that created the system, Senate Bill 6069, was signed into law on Thursday by Gov. Jay Inslee. It passed the Legislature this year, with final votes of 55 to 41 in the House and 35 to 12 in the Senate.

Oregon established the first state-run automated individual retirement savings system in 2017, and several other states, including California, Maryland and Virginia, have followed suit, according to Pew Charitable Trusts.

A redrawn Washington legislative district map selected by a U.S. District Court judge earlier this month will be used in elections this year. The U.S. Court of Appeals has announced it will not step in to block the decision. 

However, the three-judge appeals panel, in its order Friday evening, allowed a group of conservative Latinos to continue its appeal efforts. 

The new maps create a Latino-voter-majority district in the Yakima Valley that aligns with federal voting rights laws. U.S. District Court Judge Robert Lasnik sided with Latino voters who sued the state in January 2022, saying the district, as drawn by the bipartisan Washington State Redistricting Commission in 2021, diluted Latino voter power. 

Under the new map, Legislative District 14 unites Latino communities in Central Washington from the east part of Yakima to Pasco in neighboring Franklin County, including Latino communities along the Lower Yakima Valley. The map also switched the Latino-majority district from the 15th to the 14th to ensure that state Senate elections fall on a presidential election year when the turnout of Latino voters is higher. 

A group of conservative Latino voters, which included State Rep. Alex Ybarra, intervened in the case and opposed the map, stating that it was an attempt by Democrats to gain power in conservative Central Washington districts. That argument did not get much traction in the original court case or the remedial map process. Intervenors, however, will now have an opportunity to lay out their argument for the appeals process. According to a court document, conservative voters must file opening briefs by June 7, with responses due in early July.

The state Department of Health announced updated guidance for people who get COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses, relying on a person’s symptoms rather than the previously recommended five-day quarantine. 

One of the most significant changes is to recommend that people are free to return to their normal activities once their symptoms have improved overall, and they are without fever for 24 hours. This means not having a fever or a need to use fever-reducing medication for at least a full day before having contact with others, since people can still be contagious after their symptoms have improved. 

Previous recommendations asked people to stay isolated for at least five full days after symptoms appeared. The state’s guidance follows recent updates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Department of Health still advises wearing a mask, handwashing, physical distancing and testing after contracting a respiratory virus and returning to daily life, to avoid the risk of spreading infection. Those with COVID-19 can be contagious for five to 10 days after their illness. People with the flu can remain contagious for five to seven days, and those that contracted respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are contagious three to eight days. 

These precautions can be helpful to older adults and people with weakened immune systems, who have higher chances of getting very sick from one of those respiratory diseases, state health officials say.

California and Quebec on Wednesday took the next step toward partnering with Washington to form a bigger carbon market.

The state and Canadian province formally announced their interest in the joint venture. The earliest that the proposed alliance could happen is 2025. Lurking in the background is a November referendum on whether to repeal Washington’s cap-and-invest program.

“Though Washington has formally expressed interest in joining the California-Québec carbon market, today’s joint statement is the first time that all three governments have expressed their mutual interest in forming a shared market,” wrote Washington Department of Ecology spokeswoman Caroline Halter in an email. Details will be hashed out among the three governments.

The Washington Legislature recently passed a bill that brings this state’s fledgling carbon market regulations in sync with the joint California/Quebec market. A bigger market is expected to bring down carbon emission auction prices, which would lead to lower gasoline prices.  

Washington’s carbon polluters, including oil companies, bid every three months on the amount of carbon emissions they can release. The volume of allowances is limited, which has driven up auction bids. 

Until recently, Washington’s auction prices — ranging from $48.50 to $63.03 per allowance of about one metric ton of carbon emissions — have been significantly higher than those of the California/Quebec joint market, taking a lot of blame for this state’s high gasoline prices. But while Washington’s carbon auction prices have been higher than those in California, Washington has frequently had lower gas prices. 

New York, Massachusetts and Maryland are watching Washington and this potential alliance with thoughts of creating their own cap-and-trade programs to eventually join the bigger market.

Earlier this month, at Washington’s first auction of the year, carbon allowance prices of $25.76 came in dramatically lower than those in the California/Quebec market, whose bid prices increased from $19 in 2021 to $41.76 last month, according to the California Air Resources Board. 

Since January 2023, Washington has raised $1.96 billion in cap-and-invest revenue for many dozen climate change mitigation programs.

Washington sweet-cherry growers are now eligible for up to $500,000 in federal emergency loans from the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Farm Service Agency after U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack issued a formal disaster declaration for the 2023 cherry harvest.  

Washington’s Congressional delegation wrote to Vilsack in February urging him to issue the declaration after weather caused major losses for growers, who needed help continuing operations in 2024. 

Last year, a cold spring that transitioned abruptly to unseasonably high temperatures led to a shortened cherry season, when numerous cherries ripened at once. 

Meanwhile, California’s cherry season was delayed due to cold and rainy conditions. As a result, cherries from both states were harvested simultaneously, leading to an oversupply — about 70% of the Western U.S. crop matured between June 20 and July 20. Normally, the season lasts for 120 days, starting in California and ending in upper-elevation areas of Washington state and the Pacific Northwest. 

When prices consequently dropped, Washington growers opted not to pick millions of boxes of cherries, roughly 35% of the state’s crop.

Growers have until Nov. 14 to apply for emergency loans, which can be used for various recovery needs, including replacing equipment or other essential items, reorganizing a farming operation or refinancing debt. 

Washington cherry growers have dealt with adverse weather conditions in consecutive seasons. In 2021, sustained triple-digit temperatures in late June damaged ripening fruit. In 2022, a cold and wet spring stunted their development, leading to what ended up being the smallest crop of Northwest sweet cherries in nearly a decade. 

Cascade PBS is honored to share that our state government reporter Joseph O’Sullivan has been honored by the Washington Coalition for Open Government for his work covering state lawmakers’ efforts to hide information about their work from the public using what they say is their “legislative privilege.”

O’Sullivan and his partner in the reporting project that spanned 2023, Shauna Sowersby of McClatchy, were given the Coalition’s prestigious Bunting Award at a ceremony on Friday at T-Mobile Park, although O’Sullivan was unable to attend.

“The Kenneth F. Bunting Award recognizes journalists and media outlets for work that uses or advances Washington state’s open government laws, or educates citizens about them,” according to their website. The Coalition said this was the first time they had honored journalists from two different organizations who collaborated on a project. O’Sullivan and Sowersby worked together on their reporting for more than a dozen stories published in their respective publications. Crosscut also won this award last year for investigative coverage. 

Sowersby and O’Sullivan used public records and dozens of interviews to tell the story of how lawmakers were silently exempting everything from deliberative documents to embarrassing content, why they decided to use “legislative privilege”; and how the exemption was crafted and used. They also uncovered how powerful lobbying agencies can influence transparency laws and how at least one executive branch agency secretly had a “legislative privilege” policy on their books. That agency has since rescinded the policy.

Rep. Frank Chopp, speaker of the Washington House for 20 years, has announced he will not be seeking reelection after 30 years representing Seattle in the state Legislature.

The Democratic leader has focused his tenure in state government on housing, behavioral health care and education. His signature policy achievements included: providing free college and university tuition for low-income students; health care and housing for low-income families and unhoused people; the state Housing Trust Fund; increased funding for early learning; the legalization of same-sex marriage; Washington’s Voting Rights Act; and more state money for homes for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“I’ve always been driven by the belief that everyone deserves a foundation of home, health, and hope,” Chopp said in a statement. “As I leave legislative office, I am excited for the next generation of leaders carrying on this work, as I continue to advocate and organize efforts in the public interest as a public citizen. As people know about me, I am not the retiring type.”

In his “spare time,” Chopp has continued his work as a community organizer and advocate for low-income housing.

Chopp, 70, was first elected to the House in 1994, representing Seattle’s Capitol Hill, the U District, Wallingford and Fremont neighborhoods. He was House minority leader from 1997 to 1998 and was elected co-speaker with Clyde Ballard during the 1999-2001 legislative sessions when Democrats and Republicans split the House 49-49. He was elected sole speaker in 2002 when the Democrats won a majority of the House, which they have not lost since.

His counterpart in the Republican party, Minority Leader J.T. Wilcox of Yelm, also recently announced he would not be running for reelection after 14 years in the House.

The first quarterly carbon auction of 2024 has added two new wrinkles to the economics of Washington’s fledgling program. 

First: The auction price was $25.76 per allowance. That’s radically lower than the four quarterly auction prices posted in 2023, which took a lot of blame for Washington’s high gasoline prices. The ripple effect on gas prices is uncharted territory.

Second: The March auction results, announced Wednesday, raised $135.5 million for the state, only a fraction of the $941 million the state predicted the auctions would bring in during the first half of 2024. 

Carbon-emitting corporations, including oil companies, bid every three months on state allowances for the pollution emitted by their facilities. The prices in the four 2023 auctions ranged from $48.50 for roughly one metric ton of carbon in the first quarter of 2023 to $63.03 in the third quarter. Those 2023 prices were significantly higher than predicted before the program began, and were blamed for adding 21 to 50 cents per gallon to Washington’s already high gas prices.

High fuel costs have led to a conservative initiative on the November ballot to repeal the cap-and-invest program. Washington has always had some of the nation’s highest gas prices due to various geographical and economic factors outside of the cap-and-invest program. Washington’s average gas price per gallon is currently $4.22 compared to a national average of $3.40, according to the AAA.

The state Office of Financial Management said the $135.5 million in new 2024 revenue is $108 million to $110 million less than what was predicted for the March auction. OFM spokesman Hayden Mackley said in an email he could not speculate on the effect of auction prices on gas prices. 

But Jaime Smith, Gov. Jay Inslee’s spokesperson, noted: “Even as allowance prices were relatively high throughout the fall and winter, gas prices fell to a two-year low, showing how difficult it is to infer direct impacts.”

Washington is exploring joining a joint California/Quebec carbon market in order to bring down auction prices, but this quarter’s auction prices in Washington were lower than those in Quebec and California.  

King County Sheriff Patricia Cole-Tindall and King County have filed a complaint in United States District Court against Burien's new homeless anti-camping ordinance, asking a federal judge to decide if it violates the U.S. Constitution. 

Burien passed an ordinance last week that establishes exclusion zones where unhoused people are not allowed to camp in a public space if shelter is available. Included in the new city code law are buffer zones where unhoused people cannot sleep within 500 feet of schools, day care centers, parks or other areas deemed “critical.” 

The Sheriff’s office, law enforcement for the city of Burien, has concerns about the law since the exclusion zones can be changed at any time by Burien’s city manager, who determines their location. 

The King County Sheriff’s Office said the city did not reach out to the county when it crafted the ordinance. Cole-Tindall also said Burien did not consult the King County Sheriff’s office or legal experts before swiftly passing it. 

The office said it will not enforce the law until the matter’s constitutionality is resolved. King County will complete an analysis of the legislation and update Burien early next week. 

The complaint is the first step in resolving the constitutionality question, according to King County, which plans to file a motion for preliminary injunction later this week. 

A spokesperson for Burien declined to comment on the matter due to ongoing litigation.