As of today, any project in Seattle that trips a SEPA review will need to calculate its greenhouse gas emissions.

What do you think? Is this a good move or is it impinging on your rights? Should the city, county and state move in this direction, and if not, what would you tell them to do?

I’ve written about this subject pretty extensively since King County kicked off the crusade last June. Back then, King County Executive Ron Sims declared his intentions to connect developments to greenhouse gasses in an executive order. To read that story, click here. 

As the deadline for action neared, I spoke with representatives of local business groups NAIOP, AGC and the Master Builders Association. They told me what their concerns were about the process. To read that story, click here.

Then Seattle began considering the changes, read about it here, and Washington State Department of Ecology Director Jay Manning advised anybody seeking a permit to start considering the same questions, read that one here.

Now, Seattle’s day has finally come. Seattle is using the same checklist that King County has had in place, though there may be some tweaks to it. To see a draft of the checklist, go here. DPD has also devoted a whole Web site to today’s changes. To see that site, visit here.

Calculating your greenhouse gas emissions might seem like a small change but it represents a lot, in part because it clears the way to begin requiring mitigation for those greenhouse gas emission impacts. King County is already wrestling with these questions, and is trying to develop a mitigation system.

At a forum in January, Jim Lopez, Sims’ deputy chief of staff, said the county should eventually get to the point where it can deny projects based on excessive greenhouse gas emissions.

From what I’ve heard, THAT’s what is scaring people in the construction industry. …But then again, maybe I’ve heard wrong. Is this idea as bad as it seems or should it be adapted to pretty easily?

Ecology and Seattle have no plans, as yet, to follow suit but are instead quietly sitting in the background and watching.

Does this scare you, or is the best thing since sliced bread? If you don’t live in Seattle, could you ever see your city, state or county doing this? Or if your state or city is pursuing this (I’m talking to you people from Massachusetts, New York and California) what’s your experience been? 

If you are eventually required to mitigate your impacts on a project, what will that do to your livelihood or your process of doing work?  

Let me know, you never know who could be listening…. 

Tags: Code issues, King County, Seattle, SEPA, Washington State Department of Ecology

This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 2:23 pm and is filed under Code issues, Greenhouse gasses, King County, SEPA, Seattle, Washington State Department of Ecology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.