Political Story Outline

Outline: Who: Rep. Hudgins wrote HB 1594. Rep. Eddy and others co-sponsored the bill. Chair of the Higher Education Committee Rep. Wallace did not support it. It could not pass the committee without her approval.
What: HB 1594 did not pass. The bill “creates the environmental cleanup opportunity grant program to assist in the effort to recruit the next generation of environmental cleanup professionals.”
The Issue: Budget cuts affect the priority of environmental responsibility and sustainability in Washington State, and the jobs and education needed to fulfill that environmental role.
When: earlier this year
Where: State Legislation- Olympia
Why: “My impression was that [Rep. Wallace] thought it was going to take from the MOCA fund and she didn’t want to use it for scholarships,” Hudgins said. Rep. Eddy wrote in an email that Rep. Wallace is the Chair of the Higher Education Committee, so the bill could not pass through the committee without her approval. She wrote that Wallace probably disagreed with it partly because of budgetary concerns.
How: The bill would have used funds from the ECA. The state moved over 70m out of the ECA to cover budget cuts. The bill would have used 200k of those funds annually to provide conditional scholarships for environmental students. “It had trouble getting passed the higher education chair—Deb Wallace did not support the bill. I don’t agree with her concerns,” Hudgins said.