Looking for a summary of our Top Bills?
These are the bills we deem major and significant. Click the image below.
Are you looking for a summary of our Top Bills for 2026? These are bills we deem major and significant. If so, use the filter below.
Bill Summary
HB 2269, a bipartisan bill, allows “rural counties” that plan under the Growth Management Act authorize middle housing (duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, etc.) on any parcel that already allows single‑family housing, but only inside limited areas of more intensive rural development (LAMIRDs). The proposed legislation caps any such rural authorization at no more than four residential units per lot and requires that the same objective standards (setbacks, lot coverage, stormwater, tree retention, etc.) and the same permit and environmental review processes apply to middle housing as to detached single‑family homes. The bill also tightens utility rules by specifying that rural middle housing in LAMIRDs must be served by a publicly owned sanitary sewer system or a “large on‑site sewage system”.
By allowing up to four units on existing single‑family lots this proposal can add relatively modest, less expensive homes without large apartment blocks, which helps address Washington’s documented shortage of housing. Counties are authorized, not required, to adopt these provisions, and rural middle housing is confined to already‑designated “more intensive” rural pockets and still capped at four units per lot, which preserves most rural and resource lands from up‑zoning.
We do concede that, even inside LAMIRDs, higher unit counts per lot can gradually increase traffic, noise, and demand on roads, fire protection, and sheriff services in unincorporated areas, where those systems may not have been sized for four‑unit lots. Additionally, more units per lot raise the stakes if sewer or large on‑site sewage systems fail or are poorly managed, potentially affecting groundwater, streams, and nearby wells or watersheds. Finally, allowing more middle housing in rural counties, even in designated LAMIRDs, can incrementally undermine the long‑standing policy of steering most new growth into cities and urban growth areas instead of unincorporated countryside.
We are supporting this legislation because it Increases property‑owner flexibility and small‑scale market‑driven housing supply without imposing a statewide mandate, respecting local control and choice by allowing counties to decide whether or not to ‘opt in’.
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Taxes & Financial
Providing specified flexibility for use of lodging tax revenues for small cities.
Bill Summary
House Bill 2270 gives small cities with fewer than 5,000 residents modest, practical flexibility to use a limited share of lodging tax revenues to address real impacts of tourism on their communities. The bill allows up to 15 percent of prior-year lodging tax revenue to be used for infrastructure, secondary roads, recreational facilities, and seasonal law enforcement that directly support visitors and residents alike. Importantly, it preserves the core purpose of lodging taxes by keeping at least 85 percent dedicated to tourism promotion and tourism-related facilities. The measure recognizes that small towns often lack the tax base to maintain roads, parks, and public safety during peak tourist seasons, even though tourism strains those systems the most. The flexibility can help small communities remain welcoming and safe for visitors, which in turn supports local tourism economies. Better roads, recreation facilities, and seasonal policing enhance the visitor experience and protect residents without raising new taxes.
Bill Summary
HB 2274 updates Washington’s commercial electronic mail act to more precisely target deceptive spam tactics while tightening the legal standards used to prove a violation. It keeps the core prohibition on emails that spoof a third party’s domain or otherwise obscure the message’s origin or transmission path, but clarifies that liability attaches when the sender has a “reliable basis to know” the address is held by a Washington resident. It replaces the current “false or misleading subject line” wording with a more workable test: a subject line is unlawful only when it would likely mislead a reasonable recipient about a material fact and when that fact actually mattered to the recipient’s decision to complete the transaction.
That change helps courts focus on genuinely harmful deception rather than technical or trivial subject-line disputes, improving fairness and predictability for legitimate businesses. On remedies, the bill preserves the statutory damages framework—$500 (or actual damages, whichever is greater) for an affected person who received, reviewed, and detrimentally relied on the unlawful message, and $1,000 (or actual damages) for interactive computer services harmed by violations. It also makes clear that recipients can still pursue other claims under applicable laws, so the act remains one tool among several for addressing fraud and consumer harm.
A key structural change is that it repeals RCW 19.190.030 and narrows Consumer Protection Act (CPA) treatment so that most violations remain “unfair or deceptive” under the CPA, but violations of RCW 19.190.020 are carved out from that automatic CPA hook. In practical terms, this preserves strong deterrence for deceptive conduct while reducing the risk of automatic CPA escalation in cases that may be better handled under the act’s own tailored standards and damages. Finally, the bill applies to all causes of action filed on or after the effective date, even if the underlying conduct occurred earlier, providing a clear, uniform rule for pending and future litigation filings. HB 2274 strengthens enforceability against real spam-and-scam harms, modernizes the definitions to match how deception actually works, and gives both consumers and honest businesses a clearer, more balanced legal framework.
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Environment & Disasters
Concerning wildfire prevention and creating the Washington wildfire prevention and protection council.
Bill Summary
HB 2275 creates a new “Washington Wildfire Prevention and Protection Council” housed in state government, with members drawn from agencies, tribes, local governments, and stakeholder groups to advise on wildfire policy and spending. It establishes a dedicated Wildfire Prevention and Protection Fund to finance prevention, preparedness, and response activities, including grants to various entities for wildfire projects. The legislation gives the council broad duties to develop strategies, coordinate agencies, recommend funding priorities, and potentially shape future legislation and rulemaking, without being directly accountable to voters.
Instead of fixing known problems in DNR’s forest health work, land-use policy, or utility‑line maintenance, HB 2275 layers a new advisory council and fund on top of existing structures, adding meetings, reports, and overhead. Conservatives typically prefer tightening performance metrics and oversight for current agencies over creating another quasi‑permanent council. Once a dedicated fund exists, every budget cycle will bring pressure to grow it, feed it with new fees or taxes, and expand grant programs and staff, especially since the bill’s language is broad and tied to popular terms like “equity.” That pattern conflicts with a limited‑government, low‑tax approach. Furthermore, the council’s membership is structured to represent a long list of stakeholder categories, which can skew toward environmental and advocacy groups over private landowners, loggers, and property‑rights interests. This increases the risk that wildfire prevention becomes a vehicle for pushing restrictive land‑use and climate agendas rather than practical fuels reduction and logging reforms.
The Legislature should strengthen oversight of existing wildfire and forest‑health programs, demand measurable fuel‑reduction results, and streamline permitting for thinning and logging, instead of building a new council and fund. Any new wildfire spending should be clearly time‑limited, targeted to on‑the‑ground fuel reduction and defensible‑space work, and run through existing accountable agencies, not a semi‑independent advisory body. Rural communities, landowners, and timber jobs are better served by policies that actively manage forests and reduce fuel loads, not by adding another state‑level panel that will recommend more studies, plans, and grant programs.
Bill Summary
House Bill 2277 requires property insurers that use a wildfire risk score or classification to tell the homeowner what the score is, the score range, who created it, when it was created, and what key factors hurt the score plus steps to improve it, all in plain language. It also requires insurers to update a property’s wildfire risk score or classification within 30 days when the owner provides documentation of completed, science‑based mitigation work or nearby community‑level mitigation. The bill is requested by the Insurance Commissioner and has bipartisan sponsorship demonstrating it’s a practical consumer‑protection and risk‑management bill, not a partisan messaging piece.
This legislation mandates that insurers build these mitigation actions into their risk models and pricing or, if they do not, to offer discounts or other premium adjustments to policyholders who can show such mitigation work has been done. It forces insurers, in rate filings, to explain to the Insurance Commissioner how their wildfire models account for state and local mitigation efforts, while treating detailed model information as confidential trade secrets. In addition, it directs insurers to maintain a website listing the specific mitigation actions that can earn a discount or incentive and the amount associated with each, giving homeowners a clear to‑do list for lowering risk and cost.
Homeowners who invest in making their property safer from wildfire must be able to see their score and get credit for mitigation work instead of being punished by opaque, black‑box models. The bill does not cap rates or micromanage pricing; it forces insurers to disclose how risk is being measured and to connect mitigation to premiums, which strengthens a functioning market. By making discounts and scoring improvements contingent on documented, science‑based mitigation, the bill reinforces the idea that people and communities can lower risk—and premiums—through their own actions rather than expecting post‑disaster bailouts.
Bill Summary
House Bill 2284 takes a practical, data-driven approach to reducing litter across Washington by pairing targeted policy reform with broad stakeholder engagement. The bill directs the Department of Ecology to convene a littering solutions task force that includes transportation, public safety, natural resource agencies, local governments, and key industry sectors that contribute to or manage litter. This task force is charged with developing recommendations that ensure Washington collects at least as much litter annually as is deposited, addressing both environmental quality and taxpayer costs. It is important to highlight that the bill relies on the state’s 2022 litter study to focus on real problem areas such as highways, parks, public lands, construction debris, and cigarette waste.
By examining why Washington’s litter cleanup costs per mile exceed those of other states, the bill seeks long-term efficiency rather than short-term fixes. House Bill 2284 also responsibly updates carryout bag standards to reduce low-quality plastic bags that quickly become litter, while preserving consumer choice and retail flexibility. The modest adjustments to pass-through charges and recycled content requirements reinforce reuse and durability without banning paper bags or imposing sweeping new mandates. Retailers retain pass-through revenue, while penalties are narrowly directed to the state’s waste reduction and litter control account. The bill balances environmental stewardship with economic realism, avoiding punitive enforcement in favor of measured incentives and coordinated solutions. Supporting House Bill 2284 means cleaner communities, lower long-term cleanup costs, and smarter environmental policy grounded in evidence rather than ideology.
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Energy & Utilities
Concerning the use of carbon capture and utilization, mineralization, or sequestration technologies under the Washington clean energy transformation act.
Bill Summary
HB 2285 lets utilities count electricity from natural gas plants equipped with high-standard carbon capture technology toward Washington’s “clean” power requirements beginning in 2030, as long as they meet strict capture, legal, and reliability conditions. The bill preserves grid reliability while demand is surging and renewables plus storage are not yet sufficient, helping prevent blackouts during extreme cold with low hydro and wind output. It tightens climate standards by requiring carbon capture systems sized to capture at least 75% of a gas plant’s baseline CO₂ emissions, instead of allowing unabated gas for reliability. Furthermore, it keeps Washington on track for its existing goals of 95% below 1990 emissions, net‑zero by 2050, and 100% “clean” electricity by 2045, but adds a realistic compliance tool utilities and Commerce have already identified as a priority gap to fix.
In addition, this legislation amends the Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA) so that “electricity from natural gas systems operated with carbon capture and utilization, mineralization, or sequestration technology” counts alongside renewables and non‑emitting generation toward the 2030 “GHG‑neutral” and 2045 “100% clean” standards It requires all such projects to comply with local, state, and federal law, and folds them into existing CETA planning, cost‑cap, reporting, and penalty frameworks instead of creating a looser side track. Penalties for non‑compliance still apply, and the bill directs penalties and related funds toward low‑income weatherization and structural rehabilitation, reinforcing equity and emissions‑reduction co‑benefits.
Legislative findings cite regional resource adequacy analyses showing the Northwest is “dangerously close” to supply shortfalls as loads rise faster than new resources, especially during extreme weather; this bill gives utilities another compliant capacity option to keep the lights on. Utilities are deemed compliant if the incremental cost of meeting standards hits a 2% annual revenue (or revenue‑requirement) threshold, and if they rely on that cost cap they must show they have maximized investments in renewables, qualifying CCS gas, and non‑emitting resources before using alternative compliance mechanism. The UTC, Department of Commerce, Auditor, and Attorney General retain authority to review plans, audit compliance, grant limited exemptions only for reliability and enforce penalties.
Bill Summary
House Bill 2289 makes supplemental changes to the 2025 – 2027 biennium operating budget. The current $77.8 billion dollar budget reflects a 6.5% increase over the $71.9 billion budgeted for 2023 – 2025. This bill increases the General Fund- Outlook appropriations by a net of $1.2 billion and the total budget would increase by a net of $4.8 billion. Washington families already face some of the highest combined housing, transportation, and basic‑needs costs in the country. Household budgets here are already tight: estimates show a single working adult with two children needs a pre‑tax income of around $129,000 a year to cover basic needs, and two working adults with two children need nearly $139,000. Because Washington relies heavily on sales and other consumption‑based taxes rather than an income tax, these state spending increases are likely to show up as higher prices and fees on everyday goods and services. Washington has already seen signs of “family flight,” with tens of thousands of taxpayers and their families leaving the state in recent years, often citing high costs and perceived overregulation. Layering new taxes on top of existing state taxes risks accelerating that trend. This bill would make life more expensive and less flexible for Washington families by raising their cost of living. From a conservative standpoint, that means fewer choices for families under more financial pressure at a time when many are already struggling to get by.
Bill Summary
House Bill 2293 would categorically prohibit all general and limited authority Washington law enforcement agencies, including the Washington State Patrol and the Criminal Justice Training Commission, from participating in any training program, exchange, or partnership with a foreign country’s military forces, intelligence agencies, or security services. The bill also bars these agencies from funding, sponsoring, or facilitating officer travel abroad for the purpose of engaging in such training. It extends beyond local departments to include statewide institutions, ensuring that no component of Washington’s law enforcement system may collaborate with foreign security entities in a training capacity. The measure applies regardless of the nature of the foreign government, the specific training subject matter, or the safeguards that might otherwise be imposed. It contains a standard severability clause but no mechanism for case-by-case review, waivers, or executive oversight.
By imposing an absolute prohibition, the bill removes discretion from agency leadership and eliminates opportunities for carefully vetted international cooperation. Law enforcement agencies often rely on comparative training to address emerging threats such as cybercrime, terrorism, transnational gangs, and human trafficking, and this bill would foreclose access to that expertise. The absence of defined exceptions means even partnerships with democratic allies known for strong civil rights protections would be banned. Such rigidity risks isolating Washington’s public safety agencies from valuable global best practices and intelligence-informed training techniques.
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Housing & Property
Prohibiting negative use restrictions on real property that have the effect of limiting consumer access to food and medicine.
Bill Summary
House Bill 2294 seeks to prohibit many private real estate agreements that restrict grocery stores or pharmacies from operating on property where zoning would otherwise allow them. While framed as a consumer access measure, the bill significantly interferes with voluntary contracts between private parties, including negotiated lease terms, covenants, and development agreements. By declaring broad categories of restrictions “void and unenforceable,” the bill undermines predictability in commercial real estate markets and weakens property rights relied upon by lenders, developers, and small business owners. The measure risks discouraging private investment by injecting regulatory uncertainty into retail centers that depend on carefully balanced tenant mixes to remain financially viable.
Its enforcement mechanism, which ties violations to the Consumer Protection Act, exposes property owners to litigation and penalties even when no consumer harm is clear or intentional. Local governments are also drawn into enforcement and extension decisions, creating uneven application across jurisdictions and increasing administrative and legal burdens. Although the bill contains exceptions, they are complex, time-limited, and subject to discretionary extensions, which may further complicate redevelopment rather than encourage it. Rather than addressing food access through targeted incentives or public investment, the bill relies on coercive regulation that may reduce overall retail development, especially in marginal or rural markets. In practice, this approach could lead to fewer new shopping centers, higher rents, and less flexibility for locally owned businesses negotiating leases. For these reasons, HB 2294 overreaches into private commerce, creates unintended economic consequences, and should be opposed in favor of more balanced solutions to food and medicine access.