Kennewick officials review regional climate element required by House Bill 1181

Kennewick City Council members on Tuesday reviewed a regional draft “climate element” developed to meet House Bill 1181 requirements and to be incorporated into the city’s comprehensive plan.

Consultants from Cascadia Consulting Group walked the council through the plan’s two required subelements — a resilience subelement and a greenhouse-gas emissions reduction subelement — and described the regional approach that pooled state funding and technical work across several Tri-Cities jurisdictions.

Gretchen Mueller, director at Cascadia Consulting Group and the project manager for the climate-element effort, told the council: “The House Bill 1181 is a requirement, and it requires jurisdictions to integrate a climate element into its comprehensive plan.” Mueller said the draft posted for public comment includes both resilience policies (for heat, wildfire, flood and smoke) and the emissions/reduction work required for the city because Benton County is among the counties identified in the law.

The draft document, Mueller said, also includes a greenhouse-gas inventory, a vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) analysis, a vulnerability assessment and a policy audit of existing city plans. Anthony (city staff), who introduced the…