WA Ag committee moves 6 bills forward

OLYMPIA — The House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources passed several bills Wednesday that now move on to the next step in the legislative process.

The committee met in the John L. O'Brien Building and briefly went over the bills and any amendments before breaking for caucus. Then they came back for an executive session to vote on what bills would move on from committee and which would not.

According to the Washington State Legislature website, the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee considers issues relating to agricultural production, marketing, and sales, food policy, animal and plant disease control, fisheries and wildlife, forest practices and forest fire protection, water, and mining. The committee also considers the management of certain state-owned lands.

The 2023 legislative session committee is made up of Reps. Tom Dent (R-Moses Lake), Debra Lekanoff (D-Bow), Mike Chapman (D-Port Angeles), Melanie Morgan (D-Parkland), Kristine Reeves (D-Federal Way), Bruce Chandler (R-Granger), Shelley Kloba (D-Kirkland), Joel Kretz (R-Wauconda), Ed Orcutt (R-Kalama), Joe Schmick (R-Colfax) and Larry Springer (D-Kirkland).

The six bills they considered were House Bills 1686, 1775, 1699, 1498, 1378 and 1578.

HB 1686 concerns salmon recovery reform.

“It’s a pleasure to bring this bill forward,” said Lekanoff. “Having salmon become the leading priority discussions for our fellow colleagues on both sides of the aisle, is going to be a big step forward on how the state legislature really addresses salmon recovery seriously, and how that intertwines with all the industry, resources, economies and jobs around the state.”

Dent responded to Lekanoff’s remark, saying that while they agree with the bill for the most part, there are some small concerns by the Republican Caucus so there would be a couple of nay votes on this bill.

The bill passed 9-2. Schmick and Chandler voted against it.

HB 1775 limits liability for salmon recovery projects performed by regional fisheries enhancement groups. HB 1775 passed with a 9-2 vote.

HB 1699 concerns establishing salaries for the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission. The bill passed10-1.

HB 1378 concerns the removal of derelict aquatic structures and restoration of aquatic lands and passed unanimously.

HB 1578 Improves community preparedness, response, recovery, and resilience to wildland fire health and safety impacts in areas of increasing population density, including in the wildland-urban interface. The bill passed unanimously.

HB 1498 Concerns aviation assurance funding in response to wildland fires.

“The bill, and the thought behind it, has been a long time coming., I started working on this since 2016, I believe,” said Dent. “The idea behind the bill is to support (small rural fire departments with limited budgets) with air assets.”

Dent explained that air assets can be very expensive and a lot of times small rural fire departments will be engaging with the fire until the state can get more resources to the location. He said the idea is to get funding for air assets so these small fire departments are not using most if not all of their budgets on only one fire if air support is needed.

“Initial attack is everything,” said Dent. “If we can hit a fire early and hit it hard and avoid going to state mobilization, we can save thousands of dollars.”

HB 1498 passed unanimously.

Rebecca Pettingill may be reached at rpettingill@columbiabasinherald.com.