Pollution-Free Prosperity
Powerful interests are seeking to use a national recession as an excuse to roll back environmental regulations, under the pretense that these basic public protections harm the economy. Washingtonians know better. Eliminating or delaying environmental protections will neither solve the state’s deficit nor create one job.
Uphold Washington Values - Maintain a Healthy Environment
Washingtonians know that the key to our prosperity lies in a strong economy and healthy environment. Unfortunately this legislative session, certain interests are using the recession to try and reduce the safeguards that have protected our state’s land, air, and water for decades - claiming that removing these protections will create jobs.
In Washington, we know better than to try and sacrifice one for the other - a healthy environment and a strong economy go together. Rollbacks will not create jobs and improve the economy - it would just make things worse. Environmental regulations are important safeguards for private property owners, public health, and taxpayers and protect us all from toxic pollution and costly cleanups.
Washington has a long bipartisan history of smart environmental protections. Maintaining the laws we have in place will preserve our state’s natural beauty, our public health, and our quality of life. We should not let a few extreme interests tarnish that legacy.
Top Threats:
- Business, building, and local government interests are promoting numerous pieces of legislation aimed at delaying or undermining existing efforts to prevent and reduce toxic stormwater runoff pollution from roads and parking lots. This toxic pollution runs into Puget Sound and waterways across Washington and is the number one water pollution problem in the state.
- The timber industry is backing a proposed new law that would jeopardize the Hydraulic Project Approval, an important safeguard that protects salmon habitat and private property owners from flooding across Washington. That same bill includes provisions to fundamentally weaken laws like the State Environmental Policy Act and Forest Practices Act, and would also gut the state’s anti-sprawl law, the Growth Management Act, by eliminating the public’s ability to enforce it.
- A number of bills introduced would hurt programs that protect against climate change pollution, including current efforts to require greenhouse gas reporting.
- Dozens of bills have been introduced that would reduce protections to rivers, streams, and aquifers by promoting unsustainable water use or increasing reliance on new wells in areas where water is already scarce.
