Welcome to the Green Sheet, a new feature the Wire is introducing for the 2015 legislative session. This will appear every Monday throughout session, and promises to provide you interesting quotes, articles, bills and committee hearings to consider for the week ahead.

QUOTES AND LINKS:

“My major was economics at the UW; it was not in granola or mountain flowers,” Gov. Jay Inslee tells Columbian reporter Lauren Dake, in an article that uses the proposed Vancouver Energy oil-export terminal as a basis for examining the governor’s environmental policies.

“There’s no direct flights from Sacramento to Manchester (N.H.), and you can’t run a state from a cellphone at O’Hare,” the University of Southern California professor Dan Schnur told the Los Angeles Times’ Mark Z. Barabak. He was describing one reason why California Gov. Jerry Brown isn’t in the mix for 2016 presidential candidates. Another presidential election cycle is gearing up, with no buzz so far about anyone from the three West Coast states. Maybe it’s the airplane food?

• Washington’s Ford Pinto tax system not so easy to trade in: The Seattle Times’ Jim Brunner looks at the prospects of tax policy reform in 2015. “Some top Republicans agree the state tax engine is not the most powerful or fair. But don’t expect lawmakers to swap the jalopy for a Tesla anytime soon. While there will be a debate in the coming months over raising taxes — Inslee has proposed new levies on carbon pollution and capital gains, and raising taxes on cigarettes and bottled water — a systematic tax overhaul in the legislative session that begins Monday is unlikely.”

• The News Tribune’s Melissa Santos has the list of 10 cliches you hear too often from elected officials in Olympia. We can only hope their demise gets bipartisan support this year. “The devil’s in the details Translation: I support the general idea of that legislation, but I might still oppose it if something ends up in there that I don’t like. Alternate translation: My staff and/or a lobbyist hasn’t briefed me on that yet, sorry.”

• And the Spokesman-Review’s Jim Camden examines what it costs to represent you in Olympia. “Based on the most current campaign spending reports with the Public Disclosure Commission, 72 candidates spent more than $100,000 campaigning for legislator last year. That’s about a third of the candidates statewide.”

BILLS TO WATCH

Sen. Andy Hill, R-Redmond, introduced two prefiles Friday, including one that would devote two-thirds of new money hitting state tax coffers to education spending, unless the state saw above average case load growth in entitlement programs, or because of court rulings. Note the referendum clause at the end. The second would move up the revenue forecasts to Feb. 20, in the belief that this would herald a quicker end to the budget negotiations, and thus the sessions.

Sen. Andy Hill, R-Redmond

Rep. Jim Moeller, D-Vancouver, is back with a proposal that would require registered lobbyists to file disclosure forms electronically with the Public Disclosure Commission beginning in 2017, possibly sooner. The measure mirrors one that died in the last session, and Moeller told the Wire he hopes to capitalize on momentum in addressing lobbying requirements set in motion by the legislative ethics panel last fall. The panel limited the number of meals a lobbyist can purchase a lawmaker to 12 annually.

Rep. Jim Moeller, D-Vancouver.

In the “sure, why not” category: Rep. Chris Reykdal, D-Tumwater, introduced a joint memorial in the House calling on the federal government to convene a constitutional convention to upend the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which paved the way for the levels of free-flowing campaign expenditures you see currently. Rep. Joe Schmick, R-Colfax, has his own call to Congress: allow states to adopt year-round daylight savings time.

CALENDAR ITEMS:

Gov. Inslee will be before the Legislature at noon on Tuesday in his state of the state address, in the House chambers.

From the Republican side of the aisle, Hill’s proposals get a hearing in his Ways & Means Committee Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. The Senate will hold dueling hearings on Results Washington and the slowdown in Washington ports at 8 a.m. Wednesday in the Accountability and Reform Committee and the Labor and Trade committees.

On the Democratic side, the House Environmental Committee will be holding a work session on toxics Thursday morning at 8 a.m., House Appropriations has three hearings Monday, Wednesday and Thursday on the budget (all at 3:30 p.m.), and Finance will be looking at the tax structure Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. and again on Friday at 8 a.m.

Finally, Yoram Bauman of Carbon Washington, Todd Myers of the Washington Policy Center and KC Golden of Climate Solutions will be debating carbon emissions strategies on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m., at the University of Washington’s Kane Hall, Room 210.

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