Democrats want to ARREST you for WHAT?

Hi, State Representative Peter Rubarno here, the House Republican Caucus Chair and a member of the Environment and Energy Committee here in the House of Representatives with Mary Dye of the Ninth District. Mary's also the ranking member on the Environment and Energy Committee. And recently, a really, really bad bill passed out of committee, which is Senate Bill 5360, which is an environmental crimes bill. Mary, tell us about this bill. It's a really bad bill. This bill passed out of committee. We had a number of amendments that they refused to take, and it's going to be really hard for everybody in Washington state. The crimes that they've already listed were things that really picked off the little guy, the small contractor, the people that are fixing their trucks, just really ordinary, hardworking Washingtonians, and they could potentially be charged with an environmental crime. Yeah. Stay tuned and watch. Right now, we're going to show you some of those debates of our House Republicans in the Environment and Energy Committee showing how bad the bill is. Let me be clear. Senate Bill 5360 gives the Attorney General's Office unprecedented power to investigate, prosecute and incarcerate anyone and anybody, however big, however small, whether they know of an actual violation or not under this new and vague environmental crime statute. This is nothing about this legislation is clear. It's vague. We have had continual pollution and noncompliance with the National Pollution Discharge Permit by the State Department of Ecology for decades, and yet they get a walk. When you have big state government that can't comply, I think that's a problem, and we need to fix it first before we start applying the standards indiscriminately to individual citizens in Washington state. A prosecution of anyone big or small, so it could be anybody like someone on a construction site. It could be a pipe thinner. It can be a carpenter. It can be an individual. Small business referred to the Attorney General's Office. It could be ecology referring to the Attorney General's Office. The perceived concern about weaponization of our criminal justice system. Now, right now, the court has some tools that are available to do it, but the legislature also has tools. When the state uses the media as a means of announcing the violation before the person has had their day in court, the process is the punishment. This is a dangerous step forward. This is a step forward that I don't think the state of Washington is ready for. It seems to me about every three, four, five years, I read about sewer treatment plants around the Puget Sound suddenly having an uncontained loss and emitting all sorts of thousands and thousands of gallons of polluted water into the Sound. I can understand the first time that happens, but the second or the third time seems like negligence and that if these people truly are negligent, they ought to be held accountable. I'll give you an example. One of the worst documented polluters is the city of Seattle. So they came to a settlement. There are financial penalties for them, but one of them was to upgrade the system by 2030, and already that's been pushed back and approved by the state to 2037. We have ecology who is not living up to the own standard they're setting, and I don't think they'll go to jail. I don't think they'll have a harsh prison sentence for not meeting the standards that they themselves set. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. These amendments were legitimately wise amendments to show the accountability that our state government should have for how they are not doing the work to get the permitting done on a timely basis, making it difficult to comply with the provisions in this law. Well, now we have to stop this bill before it gets onto the House floor, and I encourage everyone to go to houserepublicans.wa.gov, learn more about the House Republican caucus priorities, and most importantly, learn how you can stop bad bills. Go to houserepublicans.wa.gov. At the top, there's a Stop Bad Bills tab, and you can stop bad bills like Senate Bill 5360.