WA House Environment Committee Improves and Passes 100% Clean Electricity Bill
Media Contacts
State Leaders Urged to Remove Harmful Provisions
Environment Washington
Olympia, WA – The House Energy and Environment Committee yesterday passed E2SSB 5116, Washington’s 100% Clean Electricity Bill, which is legislation that requires utilities to obtain 100 percent of their electricity from carbon-free energy sources. The bill features key near-term targets to eliminate coal from the grid by 2025 and requires utilities to be 80 percent carbon-free by 2030.
Environment Washington Director Bruce Speight issued the following statement on the House Committee Vote:
“This action puts us one step closer to a 100% Renewable Energy future in Washington State. We applaud Chair Fitzgibbon and the House Energy and Environment Committee for their work to improve the 100% Clean Electricity Bill by removing a categorical exemption for a carbon-emitting gas-fired power plant and making the 2045 standard stronger. The committee’s passage advances the bill and takes us another step toward making the Evergreen state cleaner and healthier.
Unfortunately, the bill still includes a few provisions that undercut the transition to 100 percent clean electricity, including defining all biomass energy as non-emitting when most biomass has net emissions and is not clean. The bill also includes a cost cap that could jeopardize needed progress toward clean, renewable energy. We urge the WA House of Representatives to remove these bad provisions.
It’s 2019. We have the technology, the know-how and the power to capture clean, abundant renewable energy from the sun and the wind. We can do it more efficiently and cheaply than ever before. Yet we’re still producing, consuming and wasting energy in ways that do lasting damage to our environment and our health.
Polls show that eight in ten Washingtonians want clean energy. Every day, we see more evidence that an economy powered by renewable energy is within our reach, and a strong 100% Clean Electricity Bill will help us get there and deliver what the people want.”
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Environment Washington is a statewide, membership-based environmental advocacy organization.
