WA Legislature - Update (January 9, 2024)

Lawmakers reintroduced 2023 legislation, nudging one cannabis bill forward, and planned to introduce expansive new hemp processor legislation before hearing three cannabis-related bills.

Here are some observations of the Washington State Legislature (WA Legislature) for Tuesday January 9th, the 2nd day of the 2024 regular session.

My top 3 takeaways:

All 2023 legislation was reintroduced in its previous form but the cannabis waste bill was additionally boosted out of the Senate Rules x-file and back into position for a potentially rapid advance to the floor.
- On Monday in one of their standard orders of business, Legislators adopted SCR 8411 (“Specifying the status of bills, resolutions, and memorials”) to establish that “all bills, joint resolutions, joint memorials, and concurrent resolutions introduced in the 2023 regular session of the sixty-eighth Legislature are reintroduced in the house in which they originated and shall retain the same number and be given the highest legislative status that they attained in the original house as shown by the official House and Senate dockets upon the adjournment SINE DIE of the regular session.”
  - At publication time, Cannabis Observer estimated that 29 cannabis-related bills were active.
- SB 5376, “Allowing the sale of cannabis waste,”was included in a WA Senate motion referring the measure to the Washington State Senate Rules Committee (WA Senate RULE). This was notable because in mid-March 2023 after the house of origin cutoff, SB 5376 was one of two cannabis bills in WA Senate RULE which were explicitly placed in the committee x-file and effectively removed from further consideration for the remainder of the 2023 session. Following the Senate motion on Monday, the legislation was eligible to be calendared for a second and third reading on the Senate floor by WA Senate RULE members.
  - The official Washington State Legislature "Guide to Lawmaking" notes that, “After certain cut-off dates, the Rules Committee sometimes places bills in the x-file if they are no longer available for consideration. Bills placed in the x-file are removed from all calendars and daily status sheets. While most bills remain in the x-file until the end of the biennium, some may be pulled for further consideration.”
  - WA Senate RULE members were scheduled to convene briefly on Tuesday afternoon around 1pm for their first meeting of 2024 immediately following the Joint Legislative Session starting at 11:45am for Governor Jay Inslee’s final State of the State Address.
- SB 5377, “Concerning cannabis license ownership,”was the other bill x-filed at the time. While reintroduced, the perennial out of state ownership legislation remained cordoned off from potential activity absent a dedicated motion by senators.
  - Senator Karen Keiser and Representative Sharon Wylie visited the Washington CannaBusiness Association (WACA) Symposium in December and shared their perspectives on the legislation. WACA Deputy Director Brooke Davies asked “on behalf of our members…access to capital and removing the residency requirement has been WACA’s number one priority for the last six or seven years…and Senator Kaiser, [WA Senate LC] has passed it many times. So other than the upcoming session being a short 60-day session, what are some other challenges that you all see with that bill…why can't we get this done?”
    - “I am perplexed” by opposition to the change, Keiser answered, as “that bill has been around long enough [for] people be comfortable with the idea for one thing. Secondly, I don't see the pushback on it on an institutional basis that you do on other changes.” She remarked how lawmakers “should do it, get it done.”
    - Wylie felt a new concern in 2023 had been that social equity retailers would just be getting into the industry as established businesses, and “initially there was concern that those new licenses would be, might be a disadvantage if the more established businesses suddenly were able to bring in capital from out of state.” However, this had been “resolved before the end of the session; and so I think that there's going to be more unanimity and agreement and effort in that direction; because everybody is struggling with this issue.”
  - Divergent companion legislation, HB 1341, had been heard in the Washington State House Regulated Substances and Gaming Committee (WA House RSG) and was reintroduced on Monday.

An ambitious new hemp bill was scheduled for introduction on Tuesday which would establish a 10-year pilot program for hemp consumable products to be sold to adults in Washington state over the age of 21.
- SB 6077, "Regulating hemp in food,"by Senator Bob Hasegawa was included in the draft introduction report for Tuesday morning and was scheduled for referral to the Washington State Senate Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources, and Parks Committee (WA Senate AWNP). Hasegawa was not a member of that committee and, at publication time, companion legislation was not yet evident in the House.
  - The legislation would establish an extended hemp consumable pilot program regulated by the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) and the Department of Health (DOH). The bill uses the existing definition of "hemp consumable product" which cannot contain any detectable amount of THC but also authorizes "hemp extract" as a lawful food ingredient in Washington state under the confines of the hemp consumable pilot program.
  - At the final meeting of the Washington State Hemp in Food Task Force in June 2023, some task force members sought input from WSDA, DOH, and WSLCB staff on how to proceed with hemp consumable legislation given that THC regulations were undergoing revisions. Industrial Hemp Association of Washington (IHEMPAWA) Executive Director Bonny Jo Peterson briefed on 2023 draft legislation to regulate hemp consumables, which wasn’t introduced during the session, as a pilot program which would have relied on cannabinoid limits set by WSDA and DOH rather than WSLCB staff, but knew there were “concern with having LCB involved with that specific rulemaking over the milligrams and such.”
  - At publication time, the WSLCB rulemaking project to implement SB 5367 (“Concerning the regulation of products containing THC”) remained at the introductory CR-101 stage and the timeline for proposed rules continued to be pushed into the future by Policy and Rules staff who most recently suggested the end of February as a potential target.

On Tuesday, legislators planned to hear three cannabis-related bills and continue to receive initial input on supplementing the biennium operating budget.
- 4pm: WA House RSG - Committee Meeting
  - Public Hearing
    - HB 1249 - “Regarding limits on the sale and possession of retail cannabis products.”
      - A proposed substitute was published for HB 1249 which appeared to account for changes to RCW numbering from the 2023 special session. That goes some ways towards explaining why another public hearing was needed.
    - HB 1650 - “Requiring voter approval for local government prohibitions on cannabis businesses.”
      - And it looks like the same can be said for HB 1650 whose proposed substitute updates RCW numbering and adds one year to align relevant dates.
- 4pm: WA Senate TRAN - Committee Meeting
  - Public Hearing
    - SB 5791 - “Concerning the evaluation of the effectiveness of oral fluid roadside information in the enforcement of driving under the influence laws.”
- 4pm: WA Senate WM - Committee Meeting
  - Public Hearing
    - SB 5950 - “Making 2023-2025 fiscal biennium supplemental operating appropriations.”