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House committee hears divided testimony on bill to add felony tiers for major environmental violations
Summary
Lawmakers heard hours of testimony on SSB 53 60, which would create three tiers of criminal violations for major environmental statutes, raise penalties up to class B felony for knowing conduct that places people or resources in imminent danger, and add worker protections and whistleblower provisions. Supporters cited high-profile pollution cases; labor and industry urged clearer limits and stronger worker safeguards.
A Washington House committee on Thursday considered legislation that would create tiered criminal penalties for violations of the state’s Water Pollution Control Act, Clean Air Act and Hazardous Waste Management Act, and impose punishments ranging from a gross misdemeanor up to a class B felony.
Sen. Yasmin Trudeau (D-27), the bill’s sponsor, told the House Environment & Energy Committee the measure responds to repeated, large-scale pollution events and is intended to give prosecutors tools to match penalties to harms. "In my community, we had criminal polluters who wrote off really big issues as the cost of doing business," Trudeau said, describing the Tacoma boat fires and tire-crumb contamination of the Puyallup River as examples that motivated the bill.
The bill, as summarized by committee staff, creates three degrees of criminal violations. A first-degree violation would be a class B felony where a person knowingly violates an environmental statute and knows the conduct places another person in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm;…
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