Timely SEPA Review Process

Recent significant changes in how the State of Washington conducts environmental reviews under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) will have damaging long-term consequences for many Washington State industries, and particularly our trade-related businesses and workforce. The implementation of a global EIS review process raises serious concerns and uncertainty about which industries and commodities will be put through this vast, potentially unattainable, and arbitrary review process. We believe it is necessary for Washington to implement an individualized and fair environmental review for proposals establishing a timeline of no longer than 18 months.

Resources:

Washington Research Council, “A Newly Expanded SEPA Threatens Washington’s Competitiveness”
June 2014

A policy brief by the Washington Research Council outlines how the Department of Ecology and others have recently undertaken SEPA reviews that expand the scope of review beyond state borders to an unprecedented extent. The report concludes that by expanding SEPA in these cases, Washington risks its competitiveness by making the process more uncertain for future projects.

Association of Washington Business, “SEPA changes: ‘The ramifications would be very, very substantial’
January 2014

Features comments by Dick Settle, a longtime law professor and attorney with Foster Pepper PLLC, before the Senate Trade & Economic Development Committee where he discusses consequences of an expanded SEPA process.