“Washington’s unique clean and competitive energy assets position the state to succeed in a well-designed regulatory climate encouraging the use of less carbon intense energy sources. Businesses in Washington State have a leadership opportunity to drive a policy outcome where real reductions occur and the economy thrives.”

Specifically, the plan avoids pricing carbon emissions, as has been Gov. Jay Inslee’s stated preference, and instead lays out several alternatives.

• Electricity
  • Support a fuel switch from coal to less carbon intense energy sources in Washington’s electricity mix.
  • Encourage investment in grid enhancement (e.g. smart grid, load-balancing storage), enabling integration of intermittent renewable energy generation and transportation electrification.
  • Support formation of select joint select task force to explore nuclear energy.
• Energy Efficiency
  • Make building energy performance ratings public.
  • Examine role of decoupling and Time-of-Use electricity rates.
  • Encourage use of outcome-based building codes, “renewable ready” construction, transit-oriented development, and other green building policies with waived permit fees, accelerated approval, or density permits.
  • Normalize building codes between state, counties, and local jurisdictions.
  • Pursue funding for cost-effective residential energy efficiency and weatherization programs.
• Transportation
  • Increase electric vehicle and charging installation incentives to reflect contributions to conservation and emissions reductions.
  • Accelerate low carbon transportation, emphasizing technologies, solutions, and fuel pathways that are available today and benefit the state, including: electricity, compressed natural gas, and biofuels—with special attention to locally-sourced landfill/waste-derived gas, biodiesel, and forest-derived ethanol.

Read the full plan here.

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