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Committee backs dust-mitigation bill to fund inspectors, require site signage
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Summary
The Senate Business and Labor Committee on Feb. 19 recommended House Bill 378 to raise a capped fee that would pay for two additional Division of Air Quality inspectors and require gravel pits to post contact signage so neighbors can reach operators directly.
Representative Grishaes told the committee that House Bill 378, a second substitute, grew from long-running conflicts in Genoa between orchard growers and nearby gravel pits and was shaped by multi-stakeholder working groups that included industry and the Division of Air Quality.
“The industry was amazing. They were very, very responsive,” Representative Grishaes said during an overview of the measure. The bill would allow the division to raise an annual compliance fee with a statutory cap; the sponsor said the cap is sized to cover the salary and associated costs of two new DAQ inspectors.
Dave Callas of the Critical Infrastructure Material Coalition, which represents aggregate operators, told the committee the industry supports the fee increase when paired with a cap. “It is a fee increase, but it’s also a fee cap,” Callas said, and he said operators welcome additional inspectors and the signage provision as a way to be “good neighbors.”
Bryce Burton of the Division of Air Quality said inspections can currently take up to a week to schedule and that adding staff and improving on-site contact information should let operators and neighbors resolve more complaints quickly. The signage requirement would list DAQ contact information and a local site contact for immediate issues.
Committee members asked why the bill places a cap in statute rather than leaving fee-setting entirely to rulemaking. Sponsors and DAQ staff said the statute sets a legal maximum while the department will follow the normal rulemaking and budget processes to implement the specific fee level; the legislative increase is a one-time approach to fund inspectors starting July 2026, with fee setting returning to the department’s usual process thereafter.
Senator Ibsen moved that the committee recommend HB 378 favorably to the full Senate. The motion passed unanimously, and the committee placed the bill on consent.
Next steps: HB 378 was recommended favorably to the full Senate and put on the committee’s consent calendar.
