WSLCB - Executive Management Team
(June 9, 2021) - Agency Request Legislation Process

WA OFM - Bill Analysis and Tracking System (BATS) - Landing Screen
[ Event Details ]

WSLCB leadership learned about the process and timeline for agency request legislation, and the Chair called for a public presentation of the legislative agenda before the 2022 session.

Here are some observations from the Wednesday June 9th Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) Executive Management Team (EMT) meeting.

My top 3 takeaways:

  • Director of Legislative Relations Chris Thompson explained the process for agency staff to draft and request legislation for the following year’s legislative session.
    • Thompson described the legislative arena as “mercifully quiet right now,” given that the 2021 legislative session ended April 25th, though interim meetings which included lawmakers continued such as the Washington State Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC) and the Washington State Legislative Task Force on Social Equity in Cannabis (WA SECTF). He gave a “look ahead” at the process for WSLCB to submit prospective legislation to the Governor’s Office for approval ahead of the 2022 legislative session (audio - 7m).
      • Thompson recalled that at this point in 2020, he had not expected request legislation, whereas “I think we will pursue agency request legislation in the upcoming cycle.” He explained the deadline to get requests to the governor’s office was September 13th, adding that a busy legislative session in 2021 made staff feel as though the month after the conclusion of the session “just evaporated, without warning. So, our timeline is a little more compressed than it has been in years past, but it has started.”
      • Thompson distributed “guidance to division directors” at the agency which included a “series of steps and timelines.” The system had been modified from prior years, he acknowledged, but was “broadly similar.” Directors were encouraged to work with their staff to develop ideas for request bills for submission by the end of June, Thompson stated. One difficulty was that he would “be out for a few weeks during prime season for developing agency request bills,” describing how Chief Financial Officer Jim Morgan would oversee the process “from mid-July to mid-August” in his absence. He pointed out, “key pieces of these efforts come from Jim’s staff in the finance division anyway,” so Morgan would be a suitable lead for the process.
      • After an initial review during the first week of July, deliberations would begin during “the second week of July” on “the fiscal implications” of possible request bills. In “probably late July, early August,” the WSLCB management team and board would review possible agency requests, including “what has come up so far in discussions about these ideas.” Thompson promised to ensure board members were “up to date, certainly, by key junctures in the process.”
      • By the middle of August, any “potential ideas” the board and management team wanted to pursue would be shared with the “stakeholder community,” Thompson said, allowing “a couple of weeks” for any “feedback or suggestions that they might want to offer to us.” “The week of August 30th,” Thompson and staff would complete a review of stakeholder feedback to “discuss with [the] management team any potential revisions and then take that to the board” in a public meeting for any other changes or “input at that point.”
      • From there, he observed that request bills were entered into the Washington State Office of Financial Management (WA OFM) Bill Analysis and Tracking System (BATS) through which WA OFM staff and the governor’s office would communicate to agency representatives if request legislation could be offered to legislators for sponsorship. Thompson said requested bills would include “legislative language, a fiscal note, a description of the proposal, information about stakeholder feedback” in addition to “how the measures connect with the governor’s priorities.” He added that WSLCB staff were attempting to have proposals for bills vetted and submitted by September 10th.
      • The request legislation process was described by Director Rick Garza in June 2019. See the 2019 agency request legislation timeline, policy analysis framework criteria, and analysis tool matrix.
      • In 2020, the WSLCB agency request package included
  • Board Chair David Postman asked for a presentation of any approved WSLCB request legislation to the public. 
    • Postman asked if there was “a point prior to the session” when the public could be introduced to what the agency “legislative agenda looks like” (audio - 2m).
      • Thompson responded that it was contingent on notification of approved request bills from the governor’s office, which “doesn’t impose upon themselves a specific timeline.” He speculated that approval could come anytime between the fall of 2021 and January 2022, just prior to the start of the legislative session. He told Postman he did expect “a good indication” from counterparts on the governor’s staff on whether or not proposals were likely to be approved by November. He anticipated WSLCB officials would only produce “maybe not more than one, or two” request bills. Once approved, a request bill couldn’t be changed by agency representatives and Thompson would offer it to prospective legislative sponsors as formatted by the Washington State Office of the Code Reviser (WA OCR). Thompson added that the governor’s office had “unforgiving timelines” to submit budget proposals to Washington State Legislature (WA Legislature) leaders.
      • Postman asked that whenever their request package was finalized “we do some public airing of that,” but empathized, “I know how those people over at the governor’s office can be.”
    • The legislative biennium utilized by the Washington State Legislature (WA Legislature) means 2022 has a shorter 60-day session than the 2021 session. See the 2020 cutoff calendar, the most recent short session at time of publication.
  • At least two agency request bills were likely on complex topics: the next step in the regulation of cannabis testing laboratories and oversight of synthesized cannabinoids.
    • The Cannabis Science Task Force (CSTF), which last met on June 11th, reached consensus on the need for a cannabis science interagency coordination team (ICT) to handle lab accreditation and testing standards. The new entity would include representatives from WSLCB, the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA), the Washington State Department of Health (DOH), and potentially dedicated staff to serve as the “client” of the Washington State Department of Ecology (DOE) in order to leverage their lab accreditation functions. At publication time, all ICT agencies were planning to independently submit request legislation and the subject matter to be undertaken by each was unclear. The ICT, which had been envisioned as a permanent entity and beneficiary of standing appropriations from the legislature, would accept the recommendations of the CSTF, adapt as necessary, and instruct the DOE on how to proceed. All of the recommendations of the CSTF presume an entity like the ICT is necessary, and---if the WA Legislature concurs---it would become the first permanent authority dedicated to cannabis in Washington state.
    • Synthesized cannabinoids in legal cannabis products, in particular delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (delta-9-THC) and delta-8-tetrahydrocannabinol (delta-8-THC), had been a topic of increasing urgency for cannabis stakeholders and board members in the first half of 2021. There had been repeated mentions that legislation would be needed for officials to effectively control or prohibit use of the compounds, which can be created from hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) in chemical conversion processes allegedly used by at least one licensed processor.
    • Board members had also voiced interest in moving quickly on implementation of recommendations from the WA SECTF. However, the final recommendations from the task force aren’t due to WSLCB, the legislature, and the governor’s office until December 2022, and it was unclear if task force members would be able to organize preliminary recommendations before the deadline for proposing request legislation. In advance of the 2021 session, the task force relied upon their legislative members to prepare and introduce HB 1443 to build upon the foundations established by HB 2870.

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