In WA, Enviro Lobby Takes a New Tack This Legislative Session

Enviro Lobby Takes a New Tack This Legislative Session

Liam Moriarty (2010-01-15)

Click here to listen to KPLU talk to WCV lobbyist Cliff Traisman about this year's priorities.

SEATTLE (KPLU) - At the start of every legislative session, the state's environmental groups lay out their top four priority measures. And in recent years, they'd been very successful at getting most of them passed - until last session. Now -- as the legislature kicks off a new year -- the green's agenda is more modest. 

With a slumping economy and a budget in meltdown, lawmakers last year balked at sweeping bills to combat climate change and factor global warming into land use planning. In fact, a lot of the enviros' lobbying energy went into beating back an attempt to change the renewable energy initiative that voters approved in 2006. 

This session, Clifford Traisman, the lobbyist for the Washington Environmental Council and Washington Conservation Voters, says environmentalists are taking a different approach. 

"This year we come forward with, we think, a leaner and meaner agenda, and we're hoping and predicting we'll be much more successful than we were a year ago." 

For 2010, the greens have narrowed their legislative wish list to three: One bill would phase out the chemical BPA, used in baby bottles and other consumer products. 

Another bill is a re-worked version of a measure that didn't get traction last year. It would take money raised from a per-barrel tax on petroleum products and channel it to local governments. They'd use the funds to build storm water projects to keep oil-polluted runoff from getting into waterways. Sensitive to the economic mood in Olympia, the bill's backers are pitching it as a green jobs measure.

The enviro's third priority is to prevent further cuts in environmental programs, from oil spill prevention to toxic cleanups. 

"The scalpel cut too deeply last year," Clifford Traisman says. "This year we're going to be more vigilant and more focused on making sure that any cuts to natural resource programs do not decimate or eliminate programs like they did a year ago."

The state budget crunch is at least as dire as it was last session. But the green lobby is hoping lawmakers - and their constituents - will see environmental protections as a priority worth saving.