Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, signed legislation that critics say will initiate a plan to move away from natural gas.

“This bill creates the roadmap and tools for our state’s largest utility to get out of the fossil fuel business and achieve net zero emissions by 2050,” Inslee said during a bill-signing event, according to The Center Square.

State Sen. Chris Gildon (R-Puyallup) said the legislation will force billions of dollars in new costs onto homeowners, renters and businesses.

“Make no mistake about it – this law sets the stage for a natural gas ban in the central Puget Sound area,” Gildon said.

“As the governor said during the bill-signing, it gets Puget Sound Energy out of the natural gas business. It’s going to be horrendously expensive, it’s going to be a direct hit on consumers, and it accomplishes next-to-nothing. And I am afraid it is only a matter of time before this bad idea is exported to other areas of the state,” he continued.

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Cont. from State Sen. Chris Gildon:

House Bill 1589, signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee Thursday, proved one of the most divisive bills of the 2024 Legislative session, favored by most Democrats and opposed by all Republicans, and passed by the narrowest of margins. The measure allows Washington’s largest utility to meet arbitrary state emissions requirements by more than doubling consumer gas prices, discouraging gas usage, and ultimately shutting off gas service one community at a time.

Under the bill, Puget Sound Energy will present plans for phaseout of natural gas to the state Utilities and Transportation Commission by 2027. The utility’s 900,000 gas customers will be responsible for replacing gas furnaces, water heaters, stoves and commercial and industrial equipment. PSE’s residential customers will face a cost of $7 billion to $10 billion converting to electricity, with average costs expected to be about $40,000 per home. But owners of older homes can expect much higher costs because of necessary upgrades to wiring, electrical panels and other equipment.

By Puget Sound Energy’s own estimates, electricity rates will increase 37 percent during the phaseout period. Rates for natural gas, while it is still available, will increase 151 percent.
The bill also changes the goal of state utility regulation from reducing costs to consumers to promoting ‘decarbonization.’

Gildon said advocates for the bill have created confusion about what the bill does. Early versions of Puget Sound Energy’s proposal contained an outright ban on natural gas, and the final version does not. Gildon said the distinction doesn’t make a difference, because the final bill still allows PSE to propose a phaseout plan to state regulators, all of whom are appointed by the governor.

“This bill gives the state’s largest utility a way to pass the cost of the climate agenda to the consumer,” Gildon explained. “Elected officials are declaring no cost is too great and no benefit is too small, and they are handing the bill to the people and saying, ‘you pay it.’

“Power bills will skyrocket. Homeowners will pay tens of thousands of dollars to replace gas appliances and make needed upgrades. Rents will increase and housing will become even less affordable. Hardship on business will be immense. We might even see business closures, because in some cases natural gas cannot be replaced. We’ll be putting more demand on our electric grid and making blackouts more likely.

“Yet all we’ll be doing is junking one of our cleanest, cheapest and most reliable forms of energy for no real benefit at all. This bill will have no measurable impact on world climate, because Washington produces just two-tenths of one percent of world emissions, and this would merely reduce them slightly. What little we will accomplish with this law just isn’t worth the misery it will cause.”

“Gov. Jay Inslee has nothing but contempt for working families as evidenced by recently signing HB 1589 (natural gas ban) that will, undoubtedly, bankrupt working families across WA. Sadly, he has been aided and abetted by a complicit corporate media, who has failed to hold him accountable from day one,” the Washington State GOP said.

The Center Square reports:

Not everyone on Inslee’s side of the political aisle agreed with that assessment in the lead-up to the governor’s signing of ESHB 1589.

Inslee had been under pressure from environmental and progressive groups since March 7, when the bill was delivered to his desk, to veto Section 7 of the bill those groups – including the Sierra Club, Washington State Budget and Policy Center, Washington State Community Action Partnership, and Sightline Institute – say favor PSE’s investors over customers exposed to rate hikes.

“PSE supports the bill in its entirety and opposes a veto of Section 7,” PSE spokesperson Melanie Coon emailed The Center Square previously.

She noted that energy customers are already transitioning away from natural gas, adding that ESHB 1589 will help.

“This legislation is intended to allow the utility, under the supervision of the UTC [Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission], to thoughtfully and transparently plan to meet the ambitious clean energy policies required by Washington,” Coon explained. “An energy transition is already underway as customers reduced their natural gas consumption by 7% for residential customers and 3% for commercial customers in 2023. Natural gas usage is forecasted to continue to decline over the next five years, even as consumers’ use of electricity increases and the share of green electricity PSE uses to meet those loads grows dramatically.”

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